Shares in Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) fell slightly today after the insulin-maker met expectations on Wall Street with its third quarter results, but issued cautious sales guidance for 2018.
The company’s chief executive expressed concerns that draft legislation to make drug pricing more transparent could potentially hurt the industry, according to Reuters.
“If the transparency bills lead to a disclosure level that is too excessive, it becomes difficult to do business, for instance, if we have to publicly share what is in our contracts,” Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said.
Nordisk raised the range of its operating profit growth outlook for 2017 to 3-6% from 1-5%, while narrowing its full-year sales forecast from 1-3% to 2-3%.
The company also said it expects just mid single-digit sales and profit growth in 2018.
Nordisk posted profits of $1.5 billion on sales of 4.15 billion in Q3, for sales loss of -3% compared with the same period last year.
Adjusted to exclude 1-time items, earnings per share were 63¢, ahead of consensus on The Street, where analysts were looking for sales of $4.03 billion.
“We continue to deliver on our plans for 2017, and we are very pleased with the recent clinical and regulatory progress for our key products,” Jorgensen said in prepared remarks. “We are currently preparing the global launch of semaglutide, which provides a unique opportunity to improve the treatment of people with type 2 diabetes.”
NVO shares were trading at $49.32 apiece today in early-morning activity today, down -1%.
$1 = 6.41 Danish krone
