By Maggie Fick and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

LONDON/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -A boardroom shake-up at Novo Nordisk has handed unprecedented power to its top shareholder, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, rattling investors despite calls for stronger leadership at the drugmaker behind weight-loss treatment Wegovy.

Once Europe’s most valuable firm thanks to its blockbuster obesity drug, Novo Nordisk has stumbled in the last year. Slowing sales and intensifying competition from U.S. rival Eli Lilly have eroded its market share and shaken investor confidence.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation, which holds more than three-quarters of the firm’s voting shares, this week pushed out Novo’s board chairman and independent members for not acting quickly enough to stem the decline in its key U.S. market.

Foundatio

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