The Pfizer logo is displayed at a research facility in the La Jolla area of San Diego, California, on September 30, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters
pfizer On Monday, it announced it had filed a second lawsuit. novo nordisk and Mezzalaargued that the Danish drugmaker’s attempt to outbid Pfizer to acquire the obesity biotech was anti-competitive.
Pfizer argues that the proposed acquisition of Metsa by Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk will help it maintain its dominant position in the blockbuster obesity market by eliminating smaller potential competitors, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Delaware. The lawsuit also alleges that Metsala’s controlling shareholder colluded with obesity biotech companies and Novo Nordisk.
“Pfizer’s unsubstantiated claims that Novo Nordisk intends to stifle innovation through our offer are false and baseless,” Ambre James Brown, Novo Nordisk’s vice president of global media, said in a statement Monday.
“Instead of competing on price, Pfizer today took a highly unusual and seemingly desperate approach by filing an antitrust lawsuit,” Brown said. He added that Novo Nordisk’s proposal, including the structure of the transaction, complies with all applicable laws and is in the “best interests” of patients and Metzer shareholders.
“Pfizer is pursuing litigation over how to acquire Metsala at a lower price than Novo Nordisk,” Metsala said in a statement. The company added that Pfizer’s legal arguments are “nonsense and Mezzala intends to address this in court.”
The new lawsuit intensifies the conflict between Pfizer and Novo Nordisk over metsala. The company’s obesity pipeline could create new competitors in the fast-growing market for weight-loss drugs. Pfizer announced in September that it would acquire Metsala for $4.9 billion, or up to $7.3 billion including future payments. The deal could be a golden ticket into the space for the company, which has struggled to bring its obesity drugs to market.
But Novo Nordisk launched a takeover bid Thursday valuing the biotech at about $6 billion, giving Pfizer a four-business-day deadline to renegotiate the deal. On Friday, Pfizer filed its first lawsuit against Novo Nordisk and Metsala, seeking to prevent the biotech companies from terminating their existing merger agreement with Pfizer.
The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, alleges that Novo Nordisk’s proposal cannot qualify as a superior proposal because it is not reasonably likely to be completed due to significant regulatory risks.
Novo Nordisk helped establish the weight loss drug field by bringing highly effective GLP-1 drugs to market, including the diabetes injection Ozempic and the obesity prevention injection Wigovy. However, the company lost its leading position in the market to its biggest rival. Eli Lillyhas struggled to impress investors with its pipeline over the last year.
