Today’s news around $NOVO B (-5,96%) is a reminder of what real risk looks like in the pharmaceutical sector. The stock had been climbing in recent weeks as the market anticipated results from the company’s Alzheimer’s research, based on semaglutide, the drug widely known for its role in weight-loss treatments. The idea that it might also help in Alzheimer’s came almost by accident, from observations in other patient groups.
Novo itself called this research a “lottery ticket.” If it worked, it could redefine the company’s long-term future. If it failed, the cost was modest.

The results released today show no meaningful effect on Alzheimer’s, and that’s why the stock is dropping. But the core business of Novo doesn’t change. GLP-1 drugs remain one of the most powerful growth stories in global healthcare, and if this category continues to expand, the company still has strong momentum ahead. At current prices, the stock trades close to a 12 P/E, which makes the valuation increasingly appealing.

At the same time, we shouldn’t ignore the structural risks. Pharma companies live and die by clinical outcomes, and no one can predict how long a blockbuster will dominate before something superior emerges. That’s why positions in this sector should stay relatively small, no matter how attractive the story appears.

Today’s news simply removes a potential upside, not the underlying value of the company. This makes the market reaction far more rational than it looks at first glance.

$NOVO B (-5,96%) dropped roughly 10% today after the company announced that its Phase 3 Alzheimer’s trial using semaglutide failed to meet the primary clinical endpoint. Biomarkers improved, but there was no meaningful clinical benefit compared to placebo, so the program is being discontinued.

The important point for me is that this failure does not affect Novo’s core business. The long-term investment case is still driven by GLP-1 treatments for diabetes and obesity, where demand is extremely strong, margins are high and the company maintains a dominant competitive position. The Alzheimer’s program was an optional upside that the market had started to price in aggressively. Once that optionality disappeared, the stock repriced quickly — not because the existing business deteriorated, but because one speculative future growth angle was removed.

I hold $NOVO B (-5,96%) , so a drop of this size isn’t pleasant, but it doesn’t change my thesis. The company’s cash-generating engine remains intact, the structural drivers behind its growth haven’t changed in a single day, and nothing in the core pipeline was affected by this news. What changed was sentiment and short-term expectations, not the fundamentals that matter over the next decade.

This looks like an event-driven selloff, not a structural break. I’m not selling based on this, nor am I rushing to double down immediately. I prefer to see where the price stabilises and how the market digests the information. But logically, a failed side bet in Alzheimer’s doesn’t invalidate the main business — it simply removes a bonus that some investors were prematurely baking in.

In the end, this is just one of those days where the market reacts first and thinks later. The core business is intact, the long-term thesis hasn’t changed, and a failed side project doesn’t define the value of a company like Novo Nordisk.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is step back, zoom out, keep your strategy intact… and go outside, touch some grass.