Novo Nordisk invests $2.3 billion in Danish production facility

[June 12, 2023]  COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk will invest 15.9 billion Danish crowns ($2.29 billion) to expand a production facility in Denmark for products to treat serious chronic diseases, the company said in a statement on Monday.

The existing facility produces active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), the main biologically active components of medicines, and will be expanded to produce material for both current and future products.

The expansion is not for the production of semaglutide, the key ingredient in Novo's highly popular drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which treat diabetes and weight-loss respectively, a spokesperson told Reuters.

Novo has faced major supply constraints of semaglutide after it was overwhelmed by massive demand for Wegovy during its launch in the United States in 2021, and has invested heavily to increase the supply.

Last month, the firm said it would ration the supply of starter doses for Wegovy in the U.S. to cope with demand.

Construction of the new facility is underway and it is expected to start producing API by early 2029.

Flags are seen outside Novo Nordisk headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, February 5, 2020. REUTERS/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

"This important investment will ensure the continuous development of our late-phase pipeline into deliveries of important medicines for treatments to patients worldwide," Novo's head of product supply, quality and IT, Henrik Wulff, said in a statement.

Novo, which produces API at two facilities in Denmark and one in Clayton, North Carolina, in the United States, said last year it planned to invest 5.4 billion crowns to expand facilities in Bagsvaerd, Denmark.

($1 = 6.9330 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Nikolaj Skydsgaard, editing by Terje Solsvik, Robert Birsel)

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