Barely a year after peaking in the stockmarket, the Danish company has lost half its value. To quote a former president of the French Republic, "trouble comes in packs" - in this case, a pack of four. First, Novo's star treatments are less effective than those of its big rival Eli Lilly. Then, competitors are jostling at the gate and even allowing themselves to make low-cost copies. In addition, the US administration has decided to put pressure on drug prices. Finally, relations between Washington and Copenhagen have been abysmal since the Greenland affair.

Parvus, known for its operations in Ryanair, Accor, Ipsen, Flutter, and UniCredit, has not crossed the 5% threshold that would require it to officially disclose its stake, but it has an ulterior motive: to influence the choice of the future CEO, the FT says. Its current CEO, Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, will leave as soon as a replacement is found. The problem? It is not an investor who chooses the captain of the Novo ship, but rather a foundation. The Novo Nordisk Foundation holds the majority of voting rights, controls governance, and has just parachuted its former boss, Lars Rebien Sørensen, onto the board as an observer. But after all, who better than an activist fund to test the limits of a closed governance structure?