Strong first-quarter growth from Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck

This morning saw the announcement of first-quarter 2013 financial results from Denmark’s two leading pharma firms, insulin giant Novo Nordisk (NOV: N) and CNS specialist Lundbeck (LUN: CO), both seeing strong sales and profits growth. Shares of Novo Nordisk dipped 0.6% to 986.50 Danish kroner whiles Lundbeck gained 2.3% to 115.80 kroner in early trading.

Novo Nordisk posted 14% (+13% local currencies) growth in sales to 20.0 billion Danish kroner ($3.49 billion), driven by modern insulins (+14% or 16% lc to 8.99 billion kroner), human insulins (5% or 4% lc to 2.82 billion kroner) and Victoza (liraglutide; +36% or +35% lc to 2.68 billion kroner). Gross margin improved 1.1 percentage points in kroner terms to 81.9%, with reported operating profit increasing 18% (+21% lc) to 7.6 billion kroner.

Net profit increased 28% to 6.0 billion kroner, or 10.98 kroner per share (+32%). For full-year 2013, the company now expects sales growth of around 9% to 11% lc (up from its previous forecast of +8% to +11%lc); operating profit growth of about 10%; Net financials of about 900 million kroner (from previous 1.40 billion kroner).