Novo Nordisk's Wegovy Pill Now Broadly Available Across U.S.

By Roshan Fernandez

New England is known for lobster. But lately, it is known for the lobsters that went missing.

Thieves allegedly stole a truckload of lobster valued at $400,000 from a Massachusetts facility earlier this month.

The scheme was complex, according to Dylan Rexing, chief executive of Rexing Cos., the logistics firm that was coordinating the shipment.

The first part allegedly involved a phishing scam, and not of the seafood kind. According to Rexing, a culprit ever-so-slightly altered the email domain name of a real trucking company. The logistics firm hired what turned out to be a fraudulent entity, he said.

Then, a perpetrator arrived on Dec. 12 to collect the lobster shipment at a Taunton, Mass., cold-storage center, run by a third party, where a Rexing customer was storing the lobster.

Rexing said he believes the culprit impersonated a carrier by presenting a fake commercial driver's license. The culprit's tractor-trailer had the real trucking company's name and trailer number on the side, he said.

After picking up the lobster meat, which Rexing said was destined for Costco warehouses in Minnesota and Illinois, the alleged thief or thieves turned off GPS trackers. The crustaceans haven't been located since. (Even if found now, the lobster meat would need to be thrown out because of food-safety regulations, Rexing said.)

"This is a very sophisticated crime," Rexing said. "This is not a mom-and-pop shop." The local police department, he added, told him that a crab shipment was stolen from the same cold-storage facility this month.

Rexing, who suspects a large organization orchestrated the lobster theft, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident. A spokesperson for the FBI's Boston field office declined to confirm the existence of an investigation, per department policy.

Costco and the Taunton Police Department didn't respond to a request for comment.

Cargo thefts similar to what occurred in Massachusetts are a regular occurrence and growing concern nationwide. Logistics experts say the thefts affect companies of all sizes, though small businesses can be particularly vulnerable.

The food-and-beverage sector faces particular risk because of how easily products can be redistributed into the supply chain, said Chris Burroughs, chief executive of Transportation Intermediaries Association, a professional organization whose 1,800 members include Rexing Cos.

"There's no unique serial number on a load of lobster meat," Burroughs said.

TIA launched a hotline this month for member companies to reach out about cargo and strategic theft; it received more than 40 reports in the first few days, Burroughs said.

Many of the reports are similar to the vanishing lobster. Companies mistakenly think they are using a legitimate trucking organization, he said. Thieves have recently targeted copper loads, he added, given the metal's high prices.

"They're trying to find things that are high-value commodities that are easy for them to sell," Burroughs said, pointing to egg and baby-formula burglaries during shortages in recent years.

Cargo thefts account for $15 billion to $35 billion in annual losses, according to estimates from the Department of Homeland Security. The agency launched Operation Boiling Point to address organized retail crime and cargo theft. The title seems particularly fitting for a lobster heist.

"This really affects your pocketbook," Rexing said. "Whether you eat lobster or you don't, there are many products that are being targeted and stolen...The consumer is the one who pays [for] this at the end of the day."

Write to Roshan Fernandez at roshan.fernandez@wsj.com

By Josh Nathan-Kazis

After two years of radical underperformance, healthcare stocks more or less kept pace with the broad market in 2025.

It isn't that the fundamentals of the sector look all that much better than they did in 2023 or 2024. Drugmakers are still careening toward steep patent cliffs, managed-care companies are still struggling to address their Medicare Advantage missteps, and President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs and drug price limits could always re-emerge as a threat.

In the last few months of the year, though, tech jitters have sent investors looking for other spots to stash their capital, which seems to have gone some way toward boosting the healthcare sector.

There's no telling whether that dynamic will persist into 2026. There are some worries the late 2025 run-up could cannibalize 2026 performance for healthcare stocks. Much depends on the fundamentals, which remain as complicated as ever.

Here are five healthcare themes to watch next year, and which stocks stand to benefit. Key names to watch include Eli Lilly, Biogen, UnitedHealth Group, Novo Nordisk, and Medtronic.

The Focus Shifts Back to Alzheimer's

In 2020 and 2021, whenever healthcare investors weren't talking about Covid-19 vaccines, new treatments for Alzheimer's disease were the most pressing topic in the sector. Commercial and clinical disappointments have sidelined the subject in recent years, as the obesity trade dominated investor debates.

But Alzheimer's is coming back to the forefront in 2026. Eli Lilly is running a closely watched trial called Trailblazer-ALZ-3, testing its approved Alzheimer's treatment Kisunla in patients who have biological signposts in their brain consistent with Alzheimer's disease, but have yet to experience any cognitive decline. The trial is set to run until the end of 2027, but analysts are expecting preliminary data to come next year.

A positive result would be a big deal for Lilly, and for the field of Alzheimer's treatments at large. The class of Alzheimer's treatments that includes Kisunla and Biogen's Leqembi, which are approved to treat patients already experiencing cognitive impairment, has been somewhat of a disappointment. The drugs are good at clearing brain plaques associated with Alzheimer's, but their clinical benefit has been questionable, and there are safety risks. Kisunla sales are expected to be just $224 million in 2025 and $460 million in 2026.

There has long been a theory, though, that while it might be too late to substantially change the course of the disease for patients already suffering from Alzheimer's, clearing brain plaques might have more of an impact in delaying the disease in early-stage patients. If that's so, it could transform Alzheimer's treatment strategy, and dramatically expand the market for Lilly, Biogen, and Biogen's partner Eisai.

There had been hopes, too, that a Novo Nordisk trial of an oral version of its weight loss drug Wegovy might slow the progression of Alzheimer's, but a trial failed in late November. Still, others are looking at possible uses of GLP-1 drugs as Alzheimer's treatments, and there could be more news there next year, as well.

UnitedHealth Group Works Toward Recovery

UnitedHealth Group shares fell more than 50% over the course of a single month in spring 2025, a spectacular immolation for a healthcare behemoth that has operations touching every inch of the sector.

Shares of UnitedHealth have come back a bit since the summer, after Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it had taken a significant stake in the company. But the big questions remain the same. This spring's selloff came after UnitedHealth pulled its 2025 guidance amid the collapse of its Medicare Advantage business. Analysts have slashed their out-year estimates for the company's earnings: Back in March, the FactSet consensus had UnitedHealth earning $38.10 per share in 2027. Now, that consensus estimate is just $20.91 per share.

UnitedHealth has said it would share 2026 guidance in January, and that it aims for "double-digit growth beginning in 2027 and advancing from there." The question is whether it can deliver. The stock is up dramatically from its summertime low, but still down more than 34% on the year. In 2026, investors will be watching for whether management can get the company back on track.

Will Patients Pay Cash for Weight-Loss Pills?

The growing weight-loss market is set to transform yet again next year with the anticipated launches of GLP-1 pills from Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Neither pill is thought to be as effective as the injectables already on the market, and insurance coverage remains a question mark.

The launches will be a big test of the new cash-pay models that drugmakers have embraced in recent months, partially in response to Trump administration efforts to push companies to deliver lower sticker prices. Through in-house telehealth storefronts that don't take insurance, drugmakers are selling select weight-loss medicines to patients for prices that are below pharmacy list prices.

Obese patients with insurance coverage may not be interested in paying cash for the less-effective pills and could still choose to remain on the injectable GLP-1 drugs, bought through normal pharmacy channels. But the companies are betting that patients seeking moderate weight loss, or patients who are uninsured or whose insurance won't cover weight-loss drugs, may be interested in paying cash for the new oral options.

Clinical data on the efficacy of Lilly's experimental pill orforglipron has been somewhat disappointing. In mid-December, however, Lilly produced new data showing that it worked well at helping patients keep off weight they had previously lost on Lilly's injectable Zepbound and Novo's injectable Wegovy. That could open up an important market for the pills — patients who don't want to stay on an injectable forever but don't want to risk regaining the weight they lost.

Lilly has said that its new pill, orforglipron, will cost $149 a month for the lowest dose through its online platform LillyDirect, and $399 a month for all other doses.

Investors will be watching Lilly's sales closely. Will the lower prices drive higher volumes for Lilly — or will $399 a month be too much for patients seeking to lose a few pounds?

Can Biotech Keep It Together?

The indexes that track the biotech sector have had a very good back half of the year after a disastrous stretch that saw the SPDR S&P Biotech exchange-traded fund drop more than 60% from early 2021 through early 2022, and then sort of muddle along for three years.

Since this summer, things have started to look promising again for biotech. There have been a flurry of acquisitions of biotech names by Big Pharma giants, an easing of worries around threatened drug price reform, and some good news from companies.

The pace of initial public offerings of biotech stocks remains testudinal, with only a handful of notable biotech IPOs in 2025. Still, attitudes in the sector are unaccustomedly sunny.

The question is how long it can last. One indication will come with the J.P. Morgan healthcare investor conference in San Francisco in mid-January, a keystone event at which companies often pre-announce guidance and earnings and roll out marquee acquisitions. The news out of the conference will be a key barometer for the sector and an indication of its health and prospects.

Whither Medtech?

Medical-device stocks have trailed the market for years, and 2025 wasn't much better. The iShares U.S. Medical Devices ETF, which tracks the sector, is up around 7% this year, while the broader S&P 500 is up around 16%. There have been some standouts, like Medtronic. But overall, the stocks seem stuck in a holding pattern.

Fundamentals across the sector are reasonably good, according to BTIG analyst Ryan Zimmerman in a note on Dec. 9.

"Top-line growth expectations among most large-cap MedTechs actually moved higher through the year as procedure fundamentals were robust," he wrote.

The question is whether valuations will move to meet those growth expectations, or whether issues like the expiration of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, threatened tariffs, unemployment, and other macro forces will keep weighing on the stocks.

"We believe the fear of the unknown has hampered returns and will continue to be an overhang unless legislative factors change," Zimmerman wrote.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at josh.nathan-kazis@barrons.com

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