Full-year 2021: sales DKK 140.8 billion, share price DKK 368

Novo Nordisk, the maker of Wegovy and Ozempic, reported net sales of DKK 140.8 billion for full-year 2021, up 10.9% as reported and 13.8% at constant exchange rates from the prior year ^[1]. Operating profit reached DKK 58.6 billion, an 8.3% increase as reported, while net profit came in at DKK 47.8 billion ^[1]. The company's shares closed the year at DKK 368 ^[1].

The results cover the calendar year in which the US Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy, Novo Nordisk's semaglutide injection for chronic weight management. The company said it reached 34.9 million patients with its obesity and diabetes products that year and employed 48,478 people worldwide ^[1]. Research and development spending equaled 12.6% of sales, and sales and distribution costs equaled 26.3% of sales, according to the company's five-year financial overview ^[1].

Other 2021 figures from the same overview include a gross margin of 83.2%, an operating margin of 41.7%, and basic earnings per share of DKK 10.40 ^[1]. The company paid a dividend of DKK 5.20 per share, for a total dividend of DKK 23.7 billion, and spent DKK 19.4 billion on share repurchases ^[1]. Total assets stood at DKK 194.5 billion at year-end, with shareholders' equity of DKK 70.7 billion ^[1].

Looking at the numbers in context, 2021 marks the starting point of a run of rapid growth for the company. Net sales rose to DKK 176.95 billion in 2022, DKK 232.3 billion in 2023, and DKK 290.4 billion in 2024, according to the same five-year table ^[1]. The share price also climbed in the years that followed 2021, closing at DKK 469 in 2022 and DKK 698 in 2023, before falling to DKK 624 in 2024 and DKK 325 in 2025 ^[1].

Why it matters for patients

These figures describe a company's finances, not a medicine's safety or effectiveness, but they matter to patients in practical ways. A company with fast-growing sales and strong operating profit, as Novo Nordisk had in 2021, generally has more resources to invest in manufacturing capacity, which affects how easily patients can find Wegovy, Ozempic, or Rybelsus at their pharmacy. The 2021 data point to the early stage of demand for Wegovy in the US, a demand that later years' sales figures show kept climbing sharply through 2023 and 2024 ^[1].

The scale of revenue growth also helps explain, in part, why manufacturing shortages of semaglutide products became a persistent issue for US patients in the years after Wegovy's approval, as demand outpaced what the company could initially produce. The financial overview does not itself explain supply chain decisions, but the steep year-over-year sales increases shown for 2022 through 2024 track the period when many US patients reported difficulty filling prescriptions ^[1].

For patients trying to gauge a drugmaker's staying power, financial reports like this one are one of the few public windows into whether a company has the resources to keep investing in a medicine's supply, safety monitoring, and future research. The 2021 report is a snapshot from before Wegovy's US sales fully ramped up, since the drug had only just launched that year.

What happens next

Novo Nordisk's own five-year financial summary already shows what followed: net sales continued rising through 2024 before growth slowed to 6.4% in 2025, and the share price, after peaking at DKK 698 in 2023, fell to DKK 325 by the end of 2025 ^[1]. The company's employee count also shifted, growing to 77,349 by 2024 before dropping to 69,505 in 2025, according to the same data ^[1]. What drove the later share price decline and workforce changes is not detailed in this source and is not yet known from the material reviewed here.