New Delhi, Sept. 23 -- five new blockbuster drugs launched by 2030, a weight-loss pill priced to reach patients who had never been able to afford the injections, and a research agenda that no longer treats obesity as the endgame.

By Tuesday morning, three of his competitors were trading higher.

Investors interpreted Novo Nordisk CEO Maziar Doustdar's strategic shift as an opening for smaller rivals, lifting shares of Viking Therapeutics, Structure Therapeutics, and Altimmune.

Doustdar's message was twofold: Novo must protect its leadership in the GLP-1 market while broadening its scientific focus beyond obesity and related metabolic diseases. That means developing future GLP-1 drugs for areas such as cardiovascular disease, neurologica...