Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk to spend $4.1 billion to boost US
manufacturing
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[June 25, 2024]
By Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Maggie Fick
COPENHAGEN/LONDON (Reuters) - Obesity drug-maker Novo Nordisk will spend
$4.1 billion to build a U.S. facility to fill injection pens for its
hugely popular weight-loss treatment Wegovy and diabetes drug Ozempic,
it said on Monday.
Construction of the plant at Novo's existing main U.S. manufacturing
site in Clayton, North Carolina, will be completed between 2027 and
2029, and will add 1,000 workers to the 2,500 already employed there,
the Danish company said. Novo opened the site 31 years ago.
Novo told Reuters late last year it was working to increase its in-house
capacity to fill the injection pens - a process known as fill-finish -
at some manufacturing sites in the U.S. and Europe.
Booming demand for Wegovy in the United States and the 10 other markets
where it has so far been launched has propelled Novo's shares to record
highs and the company last year overtook LVMH to become Europe's most
valuable listed company.
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But the success has left Novo facing shortages and forced to limit the
number of patients taking the once-weekly injection.
Boosting output of Wegovy has become more urgent since rival Eli Lilly
launched its own obesity drug Zepbound in the U.S. in December.
Neither company can produce enough to meet demand. Some experts predict
that sales for obesity treatments could reach about $150 billion
annually by the early 2030s.
Since launching Wegovy in the U.S. in mid-2021, Novo has spent billions
to boost production - much of it at facilities in its native Denmark but
also at other sites including the one in North Carolina.
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![](../images/062524PIX/health10.jpg)
Boxes of Ozempic and Wegovy made by Novo Nordisk are seen at a
pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie
Adams//File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/25/images/ads/current/guzzardos_lda_GENERIC_040524.png) In another attempt to grow Novo's
manufacturing capacity for Wegovy, Novo's controlling shareholder
Novo Holdings announced in February that it would buy Catalent, a
large U.S.-based contract drugmaker that is a subcontractor for
making Wegovy, for $16.5 billion.
Novo Holdings said that after the deal closes, it will sell three of
Catalent's fill-finish sites - in Italy, Belgium, and in the U.S. -
onto Novo Nordisk.
Niels Laurbjerg Nielsen, a corporate vice president at Novo who is
in charge of fill-finish manufacturing at the Clayton, North
Carolina facility, said he could not comment on that deal.
In an interview with Reuters, he declined to specify how many more
doses would be produced there once the new fill-finish factory
opened, but said the investment was part of the company's efforts to
reach more patients.
The initial focus would be on producing Wegovy and Ozempic, although
the manufacturing lines could produce other "future" medicines, he
said, without specifying them.
(Reporting by Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Maggie Fick; editing by
Barbara Lewis)
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