Novo Nordisk on Monday announced it is boosting its manufacturing capabilities with a $4.1 billion commitment to construct a second fill and finishing facility in Clayton, North Carolina.
Novo Nordisk on Monday announced plans to pump $4.1 billion into its U.S. manufacturing footprint in an effort to boost capacity to produce current and future injectable medicines for obesity and other chronic conditions.
Monday’s multibillion-dollar commitment—which is “one of the largest manufacturing investments in Novo Nordisk’s history,” according to the pharma—will fund the construction of a second fill and finishing facility in Clayton, North Carolina.
The new plant will add 1.4 million square feet of production space to Novo’s U.S. footprint, doubling the combined areas of its three existing sites in North Carolina. The new fill-finish factory will be capable of aseptic manufacturing and finished production processes and will add 1,000 new jobs in the state.
Monday’s investment comes as Novo is planning to ramp up production investments to $6.8 billion in 2024, up from $3.9 billion last year.
Novo CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen in a statement called Monday’s investment “yet another real signal” of the pharma’s “efforts to scale up our production to meet the growing global need for our life-changing medicines.”
The North Carolina facility is expected to be completed between 2027 and 2029, and its construction will employ around 2,000 external contractors. Clearing and foundational work for the plant is already underway.
Monday’s $4.1 billion investment is the latest development in Novo’s push in recent months to expand its manufacturing capabilities and meet the market’s insatiable appetite for its blockbuster GLP-1 receptor agonist semaglutide, marketed as Ozempic for type 2 diabetes and as Wegovy for chronic weight management.
In November 2023, Novo announced a $6 billion commitment to its operations in Denmark, meant primarily to help it meet current and future demand for its medicines. The pharma kicked off the investment with a $3.6 billion capital tranche last year and will come up with the remaining amount over the next six years.
In February 2024, Novo’s parent company Novo Nordisk Foundation snapped up CDMO giant Catalent for $16.5 billion. Subsequently, the foundation’s investment arm Novo Holdings announced that it would sell three of Catalent’s fill-finish site to the pharma.
A month later, Novo announced a $556 million commitment in China, which will help construct a sterile preparations plant to boost supply.
Tristan Manalac is an independent science writer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. Reach out to him on LinkedIn or email him at tristan@tristanmanalac.com or tristan.manalac@biospace.com.
