Ozempic maker struggles as it loses ground to rivals in weight-loss market

The maker of Ozempic and Wegovy has cut its sales and profit forecasts as it continues to fall behind in the competitive market for obesity and diabetes treatments.Novo Nordisk’s chief executive, Mike Doustdar, who took the reins in August, said the reduced guidance was because of “the lower growth expectations for our GLP-1 treatments”.“The market is more competitive than ever more,” Doustdar said in a video message accompanying the company’s third-quarter results.The Danish pharmaceutical firm’s rate of profit growth has slowed and its share price has slid after losing ground to its US rival Eli Lilly, which makes the Mounjaro and Zepbound weight-loss injections. Clinical studies have shown that Mounjaro is more effective in causing weight loss than Wegovy

M&S boss says Reeves made customers more worried with pre-budget speech

The boss of Marks & Spencer has said Rachel Reeves has made his customers “more worried” about rising costs with her pre-budget speech as retailers prepare for the key Christmas trading period.Stuart Machin said his shoppers were “worried about rising costs and they did get more worried” after the chancellor failed to rule out breaking manifesto pledges not to raise key taxes in her speech on Tuesday.The M&S chief executive suggested Reeves’s lack of detail in spelling out her plans had left shoppers and businesses unsure about what new costs they could face in the months ahead.“Shoppers are planning for a good Christmas, but planning for the worst with the budget and hoping for the best,” he said.Expressing frustration about the timing of the fiscal event – just two days before Black Friday on 28 November, the US-inspired discount day which has become one of the year’s busiest shopping days – Machin said: “We are all sitting here waiting for the 26th”

Global stock markets fall sharply over AI bubble fears

Global stock markets have fallen sharply amid concerns that a boom in valuations of artificial intelligence (AI) companies could be rapidly cooling.Markets in the US, Asia and Europe have fallen after bank bosses warned a serious stock market correction could lie ahead, after a run of record stock market highs led some companies to appear overvalued.In the US, the tech-focused Nasdaq and the S&P 500 on Tuesday suffered their largest one-day percentage drop in almost a month.Technology shares pulled the Nasdaq lower, which resulted in it closing 2% down. Meanwhile, there were one-day falls for all of the “magnificent seven” AI-related stocks, including the chipmaker Nvidia, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Alphabet (the owner of Google) and Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp)

Bosses at six water firms had £4m in bonuses blocked under new rules, Ofwat says

Water company bosses were blocked from receiving £4m in bonuses for the last financial year – and the industry regulator is considering forcing companies to report pay received from parent companies after a Guardian investigation.Ofwat, the regulator for English and Welsh water firms, said six companies had complied with the new rules governing the sector and did not pay out bonuses to bosses. However, it is consulting on further rules to force the disclosure of payments by other companies after the revelation that Yorkshire Water’s chief executive, Nicola Shaw, had received £1.3m in secret payments via an offshore parent company.The government in June banned bonuses for water companies that failed to protect the environment from the worst pollution incidents, after widespread public outrage over the extent of sewage in Britain’s rivers and seas

Fixing Britain’s worklessness crisis will cost employers £6bn a year, report says

Employers have been told in a landmark government review that fixing Britain’s health-related worklessness crisis will require them to spend £6bn a year on support for their staff.In a major report before this month’s budget, Charlie Mayfield warned that businesses needed to play a more central role in tackling a rising tide of ill-health that is pushing millions of people out of work.The former chair of John Lewis, who was appointed by ministers to lead the government’s Keep Britain Working review last year, said that a drastic expansion in occupational health was needed to help prevent hundreds of thousands of people from falling out of the workforce each year.“We need to fix this,” Mayfield told the Guardian. “What we are proposing is a fundamental reset in terms of how health is handled in the workplace

Telecoms companies to improve security to stop UK phone number ‘spoofing’

Six of the biggest phone companies have said they will work together and upgrade their systems to stop fraudsters being able to “spoof” UK phone numbers and commit fraud.New technology is expected to be rolled out over the next year that will stop criminals impersonating legitimate bodies and subsequently duping people into believing they are talking to real companies, banks and government departments.Under the new plans, which aim to tackle number spoofing by foreign call centres, it will become clear when calls are coming from abroad.The agreement – called the second telecommunications fraud charter – is expected to be signed on Wednesday by representatives of BT/EE, Virgin Media O2, VodafoneThree, Tesco Mobile, Talk Talk and Sky as well as Comms Council UK (CCUK), an industry body, and the government.In January, the telecoms regulator Ofcom said phone providers must block all calls from abroad that falsely displayed a UK landline number