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 The tablet version of its diabetes drug, known as semaglutide, is an
important growth prospect for the Danish drugmaker, which faces
pressure on prices from competitors and U.S. lawmakers, who have
been critical of rising drug costs.
Novo, the world's biggest producer of diabetes drugs, said the new
plant near Durham would receive shipments of the active
pharmaceutical ingredient needed to produce the pill from another
factory under construction in North Carolina.
"We want to build manufacturing capacity in the United States so
that we can establish a local U.S. supply chain for oral semaglutide
and other future oral products," Novo Nordisk vice president Henrik
Steen Jensen told Reuters.
Novo submitted its oral semaglutide drug for approval in the United
States in March and hopes to begin local production in 2021, Jensen
said.
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The tablet, which Novo currently produces only in Denmark, belongs
to a blockbuster class of treatments known as GLP-1s that stimulate
insulin production.
So far, all have been via injection and a pill would make it quicker
and easier for diabetics to take their medication.
Novo said it bought the plant in Durham from Purdue Pharma but did
not disclose the price or capacity.
(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Dale Hudson)
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