Industry coverage tracks the money around peptides: Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk earnings, pipeline shifts, M&A, IPOs, peptide CDMO capacity, and the telehealth and pharmacy economy that GLP-1s built.
The two stories that keep moving the most market cap: how fast oral GLP-1s reach approval (orforglipron, oral semaglutide, oral wegovy, danuglipron's exit), and what happens to the compounded-peptide channel as the FDA tightens. Hims, Ro, LifeMD, GoodRx, and Amazon Pharmacy have all rerouted distribution in the past year. Behind them, contract manufacturers like Bachem, PolyPeptide, and BASF have been the bottleneck no one talked about until they were.
Stories here name the company, the deal, and the dollars. Earnings, partnership, regulatory hit — whatever moved the share price gets covered.
Novo will hold its Capital Markets Day in London on Monday, September 21, 2026, with CEO Mike Doustdar presenting the corporate strategy. A TIKR preview published September 10 noted that the U.S.-listed shares closed at $44.56 on September 9, nearer their 12-month low of $35.12 than their high of $64.16. The preview put total Wegovy pill prescriptions past five million, with the latest million added in four weeks, and the pill's share of the U.S. oral obesity market at about 90%. It also pointed to a U.S. obesity decision on CagriSema at the end of 2026 and to semaglutide losing exclusivity in markets such as Canada and Brazil in the second half of 2026. The event follows Novo's announcement that it will drop 'Nordisk' from its name in day-to-day use.
Halozyme priced $1.3 billion of 1.50% convertible senior notes due 2033 on Thursday, September 17, 2026, up from the $1.05 billion originally announced. Interest is payable semi-annually, and the initial conversion rate of 7.1509 shares per $1,000 of principal equals about $139.84 per share. Halozyme plans to spend about $162.5 million on capped call transactions, about $217.0 million to repurchase $151.7 million of its 2027 notes, and about $435.5 million to repurchase $220.0 million of its 2028 notes, with the rest for general corporate purposes including potential acquisitions. Closing was expected on September 22, 2026. Halozyme's ENHANZE drug delivery technology is used in ten commercialized products and is licensed to companies including Roche, Takeda, Pfizer, Janssen, AbbVie, Eli Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, and argenx.
Bristol Myers Squibb has told Orum Therapeutics it is ending development of BMS-986497 (ORM-6151), a degrader-antibody conjugate that pairs a CD33-targeting antibody with a GSPT1 degrader, after reviewing Phase 1 data in acute myeloid leukemia and high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome, Korea Biomedical Review reported on September 18, 2026. BMS bought the program from Orum in October 2023 for $100 million upfront in a deal worth up to $180 million; Orum keeps the upfront payment but is no longer eligible for up to $80 million in remaining milestones. Orum said it was notified unexpectedly and is assessing the situation. It will concentrate on ORM-1153, a CD123-targeting degrader-antibody conjugate for the same indications, for which the FDA has cleared an investigational new drug application.
Novo Nordisk announced on Monday, September 14, 2026 that it will use 'Novo' as its day-to-day company name, while Novo Nordisk A/S remains its legal name. The rebrand introduces the platform 'Lasting Health Starts Now,' an updated version of the Apis bull logo, and a culture framework called The Novo Way, built on customer obsession, competitiveness, clarity, and care and integrity. CEO Mike Doustdar said healthcare "must become more responsive, relevant and easier to fit into everyday life." The company said it would present more detail on its strategy at its Capital Markets Day in London on September 21, 2026.
Dualitas Therapeutics announced on Thursday, September 17, 2026 a research collaboration and license agreement with Roche to discover bispecific antibodies for immunology and inflammation diseases. Dualitas receives $36.5 million upfront and can earn research, development, and commercial milestones plus tiered royalties, for a total potential value of up to $1 billion. It will use its DualScreen Bispecific Discovery Engine to functionally screen more than 300,000 novel bispecific combinations, and Roche will handle all later preclinical development, regulatory, manufacturing, and commercial work.
Novo Nordisk and Anthropic announced on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 a collaboration under which Novo Nordisk will test Anthropic's Claude Science in specific research and development workflows and use Anthropic's frontier models for biological reasoning, drug discovery, and AI-driven software development. Financial terms were not disclosed. Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar said AI can help the company increase R&D productivity and "compress the path from research to marketed product." Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei said giving researchers access to frontier models can shorten research timelines.
Novo Nordisk said on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 that it will present 44 abstracts at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Milan, Italy, from September 28 to October 2. The OCTANE study will report real-world data on Wegovy pill use, including weight outcomes, treatment switching, and patient-reported outcomes. Other presentations cover Wegovy 7.2 mg; CagriSema (cagrilintide plus semaglutide) data on appetite regulation, eating behavior, body composition, and bone remodeling from the REDEFINE and REIMAGINE programs; and zenagamtide, the unimolecular GLP-1 and amylin receptor agonist formerly called amycretin.
Zealand Pharma CEO Adam Steensberg spoke on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at the Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference, where he described the company's Metabolic Frontier 2030 ambition, launched the previous December: five products on the market and 10 clinical programs by 2030. He said petrelintide, Zealand's long-acting amylin analog, produced double-digit weight loss with placebo-like tolerability in the Phase 2 ZUPREME-1 trial and is moving into Phase 3 with Roche. Under the agreement the companies announced on March 12, 2025, Roche paid $1.65 billion upfront, the deal's total potential value is up to $5.3 billion, and profits on petrelintide and the petrelintide/CT-388 combination are shared 50/50 in the U.S. and Europe. Steensberg also discussed survodutide, partnered with Boehringer Ingelheim, and glepaglutide for short bowel syndrome.
Circle Pharma announced on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 an oversubscribed $92.5 million Series E financing led by The Column Group, with participation from Nextech Invest, RA Capital Management, Euclidean Capital, and Eli Lilly and Company. The South San Francisco company said the money will take CID-165, which it describes as a first-in-class oral macrocyclic cyclin D1 RxL inhibitor, through early clinical development in ER-positive breast cancer and support its broader pipeline of cyclin-targeted macrocycles. Circle expects CID-165 to enter clinical development in the first quarter of 2027.
Diasome Pharmaceuticals announced on Tuesday, September 15, 2026 that it appointed Sangeeta Sawhney, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer as it prepares its lead program, HDV-Insulin, for Phase 3 development. Paul Strumph, M.D., who had been interim CMO, becomes senior medical advisor, and the company also named Linda Rubinstein chief financial officer, David Williams chief strategy officer, Karen Donovan head of commercial development, and David O'Reilly head of business development. Diasome says HDV-Insulin is designed to restore the liver's role in mealtime insulin action and improve the balance between glucose control and hypoglycemia risk. The announcement said the Phase 2b OPTI-2 trial had concluded but did not report its results or a Phase 3 timeline.
Samsung Biologics (KRX: 207940), through its direct Swiss subsidiary Samsung Peptide AG, opened Tuesday September 15, 2026 the main offer period for its public tender for all publicly held registered shares of PolyPeptide Group AG (SIX: PPGN). Terms: CHF 44.31 net in cash per PolyPeptide share, implied aggregate equity value of approximately CHF 1.46 billion (approximately $1.8 billion at prevailing FX). The main offer period runs September 15 through October 12, 2026 at 4:00 p.m. Central European Time. Closing conditions: 66⅔% minimum acceptance threshold on a fully diluted share count (excluding treasury shares), plus customary regulatory approvals. Draupnir Holding B.V. — PolyPeptide's largest single shareholder with approximately 55.65% of outstanding shares — has committed to tender all of its shares. PolyPeptide's independent directors unanimously recommend acceptance based on an independent fairness opinion from IFBC AG. The price represents a 40% premium to the April 10, 2026 closing price and an 11.6% premium to the 60-day volume-weighted average price prior to the July 20 pre-announcement. Transaction close is targeted for end of 2026, after which Samsung intends to squeeze out remaining minorities and delist PolyPeptide, folding the Malmö, Limhamn, Strasbourg, Braine-l'Alleud, and Torrance sites into Samsung's Incheon multi-modality footprint. The transaction consolidates one of the top three global peptide CDMO capacity positions alongside Bachem and CordenPharma.
Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) presented Tuesday September 15, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. ET at the Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference in New York with Jay Bradner MD (Executive Vice President Research and Development, Artificial Intelligence and Data) and Thomas Dittrich (Executive Vice President and CFO) — an unusual R&D-plus-finance pairing that indicates the AI-driven research investment thesis is a live investor question alongside the near-term MariTide (maridebart cafraglutide, antibody-peptide conjugate combining GLP-1 receptor agonism with GIP receptor antagonism) obesity narrative. The Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference presentation last Thursday September 10 laid out the MariTide dosing thesis (8-week or quarterly maintenance dosing, 4-6 doses per year after induction) plus the MARITIME-SWITCH Phase 3 conversion trial from weekly injectable semaglutide or tirzepatide onto monthly MariTide. Phase 2 data anchored 20% weight loss at 52 weeks plus reductions in triglycerides, hs-CRP, and an 11 mmHg blood pressure drop. Bradner is also expected to address the pipeline consolidation following the August discontinuation of AMG 513 (Phase 1 obesity), which left MariTide as the sole late-stage Amgen obesity asset. Filing is planned late 2026 to early 2027 with anticipated launch 2027-2028.
Ascendis Pharma A/S (NASDAQ: ASND) presented Tuesday September 15, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET at the Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference in New York in a fireside chat format. The presentation followed the ESPE 2026 congress podium delivery September 8 of first Week 52 sentinel-cohort data from the Phase 3 reACHin trial of navepegritide (TransCon CNP, marketed as YUVIWEL in the U.S.) in 7 infants with achondroplasia aged 0 to under 2 years: 9.9 cm/year annualized growth velocity, +0.42 ACH-specific supine length Z-score, +3.15 mm sagittal foramen magnum increase, and no decompression surgeries at 100 μg/kg/week dosing. The Ascendis TransCon endocrinology franchise reached €315 million in combined Q2 2026 product revenue (+105% year-over-year): YORVIPATH (palopegteriparatide, PTH replacement) €252 million, SKYTROFA (lonapegsomatropin, growth hormone) €55 million, and YUVIWEL (navepegritide, CNP for achondroplasia) €8 million in the first U.S. commercial quarter. The August 31 Ascendis-BioMarin global settlement resolves the YUVIWEL patent overhang (20% U.S. royalties, 18% EU/South Korea/Brazil through May 2030; ITC Section 337 dismissed).
STAT News published Tuesday September 15, 2026 a landscape piece flagging that obesity drug developers have expanded pediatric trial testing to include children as young as six years old, extending the age range down from the Wegovy 12-and-older U.S. label. Novo Nordisk's STEP Young Phase 3 (topline reported September 7) tested once-weekly semaglutide in 165 children aged 6 to under 12 with obesity: 40.4% of the semaglutide group achieved a BMI below the obesity threshold at week 68 versus 0% on placebo, with no new safety concerns and no signals for growth or pubertal development. STAT flagged additional pediatric-obesity trial activity following the January 2023 AAP Clinical Practice Guideline endorsement of medication therapy for children aged 12+ and consideration in ages 6-11. The September 4 Pediatrics journal publication documented a 310-fold increase in GLP-1 prescribing to U.S. children aged 8-11 with obesity between 2019 and mid-2026 (0.03% to 9.3%), with 93.7% of recipients having severe obesity and 65.2% having weight-related comorbidities. Full STEP Young results are scheduled for ObesityWeek 2026 (November 14-17, Washington DC). No Wegovy sNDA for ages under 12 has been filed as of September 15, 2026.
Insmed Incorporated (NASDAQ: INSM) presented Monday September 14, 2026 at 2:35 p.m. ET at the Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference in New York, raising full-year 2026 BRINSUPRI (brensocatib, oral dipeptidyl peptidase 1 inhibitor approved August 2025 for non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis in ages 12+) revenue guidance to $1.25-1.4 billion, up from earlier launch-year projections. Q2 2026 BRINSUPRI revenue was $309.2 million (49% sequential growth over Q1) driven by strong U.S. launch momentum through specialty pharmacy channels. Management flagged peak U.S. sales potential above $7 billion in the bronchiectasis indication alone, before considering additional expansion into COPD or comorbid asthma populations. The Phase 3 ASPEN trial supporting the U.S. approval enrolled 1,721 NCFB patients across 35+ countries; brensocatib reduced pulmonary exacerbations by 21.2% at the 10 mg dose (primary endpoint met). EMA and MHRA reviews are ongoing with Japanese filing planned for H2 2026. Insmed also confirmed the September 6-9 ERS Congress presentations included the ASPEN post-hoc bronchiectasis-plus-prior-NTM analysis and a COMPERA 2.0 risk-assessment analysis of treprostinil palmitil inhalation powder (TPIP) in pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) presented Monday September 14, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. ET at the Morgan Stanley 24th Annual Global Healthcare Conference in New York with CEO Yvonne Greenstreet and John Kennedy (SVP Global Commercialization / TTR Franchise Lead), disclosing a modest trim to full-year TTR franchise revenue guidance as early AMVUTTRA (vutrisiran, subcutaneous RNAi TTR silencer approved March 2025 for adults with ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy) launch demand normalized. Management emphasized the underlying market remains large and underdiagnosed, physician adoption is strong, and pipeline funding from AMVUTTRA commercial success is not at risk. AMVUTTRA competes in ATTR-CM against Pfizer's Vyndaqel/Vyndamax (tafamidis, oral small-molecule stabilizer) plus the recently launched BridgeBio Attruby (acoramidis, oral) — the launch mix has shifted as switch-from-tafamidis patients and treatment-naive patients balance out. HELIOS-B Phase 3 data anchored the approval with a 33% reduction in the composite of all-cause mortality plus recurrent cardiovascular events at 36 months. The trim adds nuance to the Alnylam commercial story that had run largely positive through Q2 2026 earnings; investors focused on the deeper pipeline (nucresiran next-generation TTR silencer plus the broader RNAi platform) rather than the near-term guidance move.
Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO; Copenhagen: NOVO-B) heads into the week of September 14-19, 2026 with the September 21 Capital Markets Day in London one week away, and Friday September 11 fresh in investor minds. Morgan Stanley analyst Thibault Boutherin had cut Novo Nordisk to Underweight from Equal-weight Friday with a DKK 250 price target (implying more than 10% downside) citing subdued mid-term growth outlook plus concerns about the semaglutide loss-of-exclusivity beginning 2031 (semaglutide accounts for approximately 75% of Novo's 2026 sales). HSBC on Wednesday September 9 had raised its price target to DKK 320 (Hold), and Barclays on September 8 had trimmed its target to DKK 300 (Equal Weight). Novo shares closed the prior week down 2.8% in Copenhagen at DKK 278.2. The London Capital Markets Day is expected to unveil fresh strategic ambitions to replace existing targets, plus pipeline detail on CagriSema (cagrilintide + semaglutide) after the February 2026 Redefine-1 head-to-head miss versus Zepbound (23% vs 25.5% weight loss), amycretin (GLP-1/amylin unimolecular dual agonist Phase 3 planning), and the post-semaglutide non-GLP-1 diversification story after the September 7 HERMES + ATHENA ziltivekimab heart-failure trial terminations.
Morgan Stanley analyst Thibault Boutherin and team cut Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO; Copenhagen: NOVO-B) to Underweight from Equal-weight on Friday September 11, 2026, with a DKK 250 price target implying more than 10% downside from current levels. The downgrade thesis: Novo's current valuation does not fully reflect the subdued mid-term growth outlook or the semaglutide patent-cliff implications on the company's terminal value. Semaglutide is expected to account for approximately 75% of Novo's 2026 sales; loss of exclusivity begins in 2031 across major markets. Morgan Stanley also flagged weaker momentum in U.S. Wegovy pill prescriptions following a stronger first half of 2026. Novo shares closed the week down 2.8% in Copenhagen at DKK 278.2 and 3.1% in Frankfurt at EUR 36.89. HSBC on Wednesday September 9 had raised its price target to DKK 320 (from DKK 300) while maintaining a Hold rating, framing the analyst split. Barclays cut its price target to DKK 300 from DKK 310 September 8 following the STEP Young + ziltivekimab HERMES/ATHENA split announcement, and Guggenheim earlier moved its target on Roivant/Pulmovant PHocus success. Novo executed DKK 9.02 billion of the DKK 15 billion share repurchase through September 4.