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Novo Nordisk is investing $4.1bn to broaden its US manufacturing and increase manufacturing of its blockbuster weight-loss medicine to fulfill surging demand.
The Danish pharma group mentioned on Monday that the funding will fund a brand new 1.4mn sq ft manufacturing plant on a web site close to Raleigh, North Carolina, doubling its measurement. The additional capability will come on-line between 2027 and 2029.
The funding comes as Novo Nordisk competes with rival Eli Lilly for a bigger share of the marketplace for a brand new class of diabetes and weight reduction medicine, often called GLP-1s, which is already set to generate $42bn in gross sales this yr and is projected to succeed in as a lot as $130bn by 2030.
Each Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy weight reduction drug and its Ozempic diabetes remedy, in addition to Eli Lilly’s rival Zepbound and Mounjaro medicines have been hit by shortages in latest months, in response to the US Meals and Drug Administration.
Each corporations have spent billions of {dollars} to extend manufacturing of their medicine, that are self administered with an injection pen. Novo Nordisk this yr agreed to pay $11bn for 3 “fill and end” websites owned by Catalent, as a part of a deal between the US contract drug producer and Novo Nordisk’s mother or father firm Novo Holdings.
As a part of the “fill and end” course of, medicine are formulated earlier than being filtered into syringes.
Together with the most recent funding, Novo Nordisk has dedicated $6.8bn this yr to spice up its personal in-house manufacturing capability. Final yr, it introduced plans to spend $6.5bn on a brand new Danish manufacturing web site to extend manufacturing of semaglutide, the energetic ingredient utilized in its weight reduction medicine.
Eli Lilly final month introduced plans to spend $5.3bn on a producing web site to make tirzepatide, the compound behind its weight reduction medicine, in its dwelling state of Indiana. Since 2020, Eli Lilly has spent $18bn on constructing manufacturing operations throughout 5 websites within the US and Europe.
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, Novo Nordisk’s chief government, mentioned the funding was “one more actual sign of our efforts to scale up our manufacturing to fulfill the rising world want for our life-changing medicines”. The North Carolina facility may also assist produce medicine focusing on different power illnesses.
Novo Nordisk has sufficient “fill and end” capability to fabricate roughly 850mn of the injectable pens for all of its diabetes and weight reduction medicine this yr, in response to business estimates seen by the Monetary Occasions.
Booming demand for weight reduction medicine has made Novo Nordisk Europe’s most beneficial firm, with a market capitalisation of $636bn as of Monday afternoon.
The brand new manufacturing web site, situated within the North Carolina city of Clayton, will create 1,000 new jobs along with the two,500 individuals who already work for the group within the space. Novo Nordisk has had a presence in Clayton since 1993.
