A notable pivot emerged on CNBC’s Fast Money on April 24 when the panel argued that Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) had become more attractive than GLP-1 category leader Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), citing a peak-to-current decline of roughly 68 percent from Novo’s mid-2024 high near $127 down to recent levels near $40 that has compressed the stock’s valuation to a level where the market appears to be pricing in a permanently impaired business rather than a company navigating a competitive challenge in one of the most commercially significant drug categories in pharmaceutical history.
The immediate trigger for the panel’s reassessment was prescription data on Lilly’s newly approved oral GLP-1, Fendayo, which drew approximately 3,700 prescriptions in its second week on the market while Novo’s competing oral offering posted over 18,000 prescriptions in a comparable window, a ratio that surprised analysts who had expected Lilly’s better-funded commercial launch and stronger US insurance relationships to produce a more competitive early uptake.
A panelist named Karen, who disclosed she had bought Novo shares on the day of the segment, framed the valuation argument in stark comparative terms: “In 2026, a dollar in each at December 31st is now worth exactly the same, $0.82.” Year-to-date, NVO is down 18.08 percent while LLY is down 20.66 percent, meaning investors who chose either company have experienced virtually identical dollar outcomes despite NVO being far more dramatically repriced relative to its earnings base.
The multiple divergence is the specific number that makes the bull case for Novo compelling versus Lilly at current prices. Novo is trading at roughly 12 times earnings while Lilly sits closer to 26 times, a gap that reflects weaker near-term expectations given Novo’s own 2026 guidance for negative 5 to negative 13 percent sales growth, but that also creates the asymmetric setup where any positive development in the competitive landscape generates proportionally larger gains for NVO than for an already-premium-priced LLY.
The most important contextual development in the GLP-1 competitive picture is Lilly’s Q1 2026 earnings result, which was genuinely extraordinary by any measure. Revenue hit $19.80 billion with EPS of $8.55, management raised full-year revenue guidance to $82 to $85 billion, and CEO David Ricks described the oral Foundayo approval as a “key milestone” in expanding GLP-1 access to patients who could not tolerate injectable formulations.
One Fast Money caller pushed back on the Novo thesis, arguing the company still has “time on its side” given its leadership position in the GLP-1 market and the multi-year pipeline of novel formulations and combination products it is developing, while framing the opportunity more cautiously as a trade rather than a true long-term turnaround, a distinction that reflects genuine uncertainty about whether Novo’s current difficulties are cyclical or structural.
A separate panelist framed Novo as a “get paid to wait” story, pointing to a projected 6.5 percent or higher free cash flow yield in 2027 alongside a roughly 4 percent dividend yield and an ongoing DKK 15 billion share buyback programme, a combination of capital returns that provides a meaningful floor below the stock even if the GLP-1 competitive dynamics take longer to resolve than the most optimistic investors expect.
May 7 earnings will be Novo’s next formal opportunity to update the market, with analysts expecting Q1 numbers that reflect the beginning of the difficult guided period alongside management commentary on how the Foundayo competitive launch has affected Wegovy prescription trends and whether any of the pricing pressure from Medicare Part D negotiations has materialised faster than the company modelled when it issued its negative 2026 guidance range.
Morningstar’s intrinsic value estimate of $18 per share, implying the stock at $40 is still significantly above their modelled fair value, represents the most bearish credible institutional view on Novo and provides important context for assessing whether the Fast Money panel’s contrarian call is genuinely early or simply wrong at current prices.
Ewan is a reporter at the Foreign Policy Journal, primarily covering US current affairs and news related to NYSE-listed stocks. He has over two decades of experience in journalism and digital publishing.
