Novo Nordisk is launching its weight loss pill Wegovy in the United Arab Emirates, the Danish drugmaker said Wednesday, marking its first launch outside the U.S. market.
Novo’s approach will be guided by patient demand, the readiness of healthcare professionals, and the strength of healthcare and telehealth infrastructure, said Emil Kongshøj Larsen, executive vice president, International Operations.
“The UAE has demonstrated strong momentum across all of these areas, and we look forward to bringing Wegovy pill to additional select countries in the coming months,” he said.
The country’s regulator, the Emirates Drug Establishment, approved the Wegovy pill for weight management and reducing the risk of cardiovascular events in high-risk patients earlier this week.
Larsen told CNBC last month that Novo was “all in” on launching the Wegovy pill in overseas markets, and that it was a “major opportunity.”
Novo announced alongside its first-quarter earnings in early May that, pending approvals, it would launch the pill in certain markets outside the U.S. in the second half of 2026, without naming specific markets.
The UAE launch comes as Novo has been battling a declining share of the weight-loss drug market, which analysts expect could exceed $100 billion by 2030. While Novo was first in launching the so-called GLP-1 drugs for obesity, Lilly’s Mounjaro overtook Novo’s Ozempic as the best-selling GLP-1 in the second quarter of 2025.
Larsen told CNBC in May that the pill format was appealing to many patients in the U.S. and that he expected it would be replicated in the rest of the world, also highlighting the Wegovy pill’s “superior efficacy.”
Studies have suggested that the pill results in more pronounced weight loss than Foundayo and has certain cardiovascular benefits, but so far, no clinical trial has directly compared the two drugs.
The key U.S. market
The U.S. still accounts for more than half of sales for both Novo and its chief rival, Eli Lilly, which recently launched its own weight-loss pill, Foundayo.
The Wegovy pill only accounted for a fraction of Novo’s total sales – 3%, or 2.3 billion Danish kroner ($355 million), in the first quarter since its launch.
In early May, Novo said total prescriptions of the pill had reached more than 2 million, as sales massively beat expectations despite its lower price point. Foundayo, on the other hand, has had a slower uptake since launch in early April, with Lilly CEO David Ricks saying it will take time to establish Foundayo on the market as it is a totally new drug and brand.
The success of the Wegovy pill in the U.S. has led investors to be cautiously optimistic that Novo can manage to claw back some of the market it lost to Lilly.
Novo shares are still down about 15% year-to-date, mostly due to double-digit drops following a gloomy guidance and a trial which showed its next-generation weight-loss drug CagriSema failed to match Lilly’s Zepbound’s efficacy.
