Overview
- An extraordinary general meeting is scheduled for Nov. 14 to vote on replacing seven directors, including chair Helge Lund and vice chair Henrik Poulsen.
- The foundation says the outgoing board was too slow to recognize a shift in the obesity drug market toward U.S. mass and direct-to-consumer channels.
- The proposed slate would make foundation chair and former CEO Lars Rebien Sørensen company chair for a limited 2–3 year term, with Cees de Jong as vice chair and nominees including Britt Meelby Jensen, Mikael Dolsten and Stephan Engels, while Helena Saxon is slated for nomination next year.
- Through a two‑tier structure the foundation holds 77.1% of voting rights despite 28.1% of equity, making approval of its candidates likely.
- Shares fell about 3% early Wednesday after the shakeup, extending recent losses as Novo restructures under new CEO Mike Doustdar with roughly 9,000 job cuts and faces pressure from Eli Lilly’s competing treatments and U.S. pricing scrutiny.