LONDON, May 2 Reuters Novo Nordisk raised its 2024 outlook on Thursday and delivered betterthanexpected firstquarter profits as the Danish drugmaker races to boost output of its Wegovy weightloss drug and fend off competition from rival Eli Lilly.

Novo is currently the most valuable company in Europe by market capitalisation, worth some 540.4 billion euro 576.44 billion before earnings on Thursday, on the back of Wegovy39;s popularity.

The group39;s shares were down 2.3 at 0713 GMT, a small dent when they have risen around 260 since launching Wegovy in the United States in June 2021.

The company is spending billions to boost its manufacturing capacity to meet runaway demand for the weekly Wegovy injection. It increased the amount of Wegovy it supplied to the U.S. market in the first quarter, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen told a media call.

About 27,000 new patients in the U.S. are now starting on the weekly injection each week, Jorgensen said. This is really a very nice volume ramp, as we were planning for, he said. That is a fourfold increase in the U.S. supply of starter doses since December.

A year ago, Novo began limiting the number of U.S. patients who can start treatment by reducing the supply of the lowest three doses of the appetitesuppressing weekly injection.

In January, Novo said it was more than doubling supply of lower strength or starter Wegovy doses in the U.S. that month compared with recent ones. Still, shortages in the U.S. persist.

The modest…