By Sabrina Valle and Maggie Fick

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -When Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar learned in late September that Metsera had accepted a $7.3 billion rival bid from Pfizer, he was not ready to give up just yet on the company and its portfolio of experimental obesity drugs.

Facing pressure to show results after taking the helm of the Danish drugmaker in August, Doustdar had already made five increasingly costly offers for Metsera, according to U.S. securities filings and court documents.

Yet he decided to push ahead with an unconventional deal structure worth about $10 billion, some five times what Doustdar’s predecessor had been willing to pay in January, according to three sources briefed on the process.

The offer called for Novo to pay billions of dollars upfront for a s

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