By Dominic Chopping


Novo Nordisk shareholders approved the appointment of Lars Rebien Sorensen as new chair as part of a broader move to shake up the company's board of directors at a special meeting on Friday.

The Danish drugmaker last month announced plans to replace its chairman and other board members after its controlling shareholder pushed for changes to revive its success in the weight-loss market. Sorensen, former Novo Nordisk chief executive and current Novo Nordisk Foundation chairman, replaces Helge Lund.

Sorensen will hold dual chairmanships at the company and the foundation. He plans to serve as chair at Novo Nordisk for two to three years as the company works through a restructuring.

"I volunteered to step down as chairman of the foundation," he said at Friday's extraordinary general meeting. "For now the decision has been taken by the board of the foundation that I should occupy both positions."

Sorensen said he has already started working on identifying his successor at the company, but cautioned that it will take time.

The foundation, which controls over three quarters of the votes in the company, had pushed for wholesale changes to the board, saying it needed new competencies along with fresh eyes and perspectives to speed up the company's transformation after it lost its lead in the obesity-drug market.

On Friday, Cees de Jong was named vice chair, replacing Henrik Poulsen. Britt Meelby Jensen and Stephan Engels were appointed as new board members. The company plans to seek the election of Helena Saxon and two other new members at the company's general shareholder meeting next year.

Former Pfizer research chief Mikael Dolsten had been expected to join the board Friday, but he pulled out for personal reasons late on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, issues have emerged very recently in relationship to his former employer, which I cannot comment on, which prevents him from seeking election at this meeting," Sorensen said. "We hope that he might return at a later point in time."

The board shake-up is the latest move by the nonprofit foundation that controls the company to halt slowing growth and address increasing competition in the obesity market. Earlier this year it pushed for a change of leadership that saw Chief Executive Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen ousted and replaced by Novo Nordisk veteran Mike Doustdar.

Doustdar has moved to reshuffle the leadership team, launched a restructuring that will see 11% of its workforce cut--around 9,000 jobs--and has worked to boost its pipeline of drugs with several billion dollars worth of acquisitions, including a failed $10 billion attempt for obesity drug start-up Metsera.

While the meeting served as a formal approval, the company said more than 93% of the proxy and postal votes that were cast ahead of the meeting were in favor of the changes.

Board member Kasim Kutay remains in position, as do the employee-elected board members Elisabeth Dahl Christensen, Liselotte Hyveled, Mette Bojer Jensen and Thomas Rantzau.


Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-14-25 1002ET