In recent months Novo Nordisk has invested several billions of dollars to boost its manufacturing capacity—including its highly contested $16.5 billion merger with CDMO giant Catalent.
With two new investments announced this week, Novo Nordisk continues to boost its manufacturing capacity in a bid to keep up with the market’s insatiable appetite for its blockbuster weight-loss therapy semaglutide.
On Monday, the drugmaker announced that it was pumping an additional $2.9 billion Danish kroner—around $410 million—into its Denmark operations. The investment will be used to construct a new laboratory with a 53,000-square-meter footprint, which will serve as the company’s central hub for quality control operations and will help the pharma “meet the growing global demand” for its products, Erik Rasmussen, Novo’s senior vice product of Product Supply, said in the announcement.
Construction on the new facility has started and is expected to be completed in 2027.
Monday’s announcement follows a $6 billion commitment, announced in November 2023, meant to expand Novo’s manufacturing and production capacity in Denmark. At the time, the pharma said that the money will go toward a new multi-product plant for active pharmaceutical ingredients, particularly those used in its GLP-1 therapies.
The new plant will be “future-proof,” according to Novo, able to accommodate new manufacturing processes. The construction projects under this investment are set to complete gradually from the end of 2025 through 2029, the pharma noted.
Aside from the new Denmark investment, Novo on Wednesday also bought a production plant from vaccine specialist Novavax for $200 million. The purchase deal, which the companies expect to complete by December 30, will include a protein manufacturing facility, support buildings and all currently employed staff associated with these infrastructures.
As per the agreement, Novo will pay $190 million in 2024 and transfer the remaining $10 million next year, according to the press release.
The announcements this week continue Novo’s investment spree in recent months as it tries to buff up its manufacturing capacity, primarily to increase the supply of semaglutide. According to the latest update of the FDA’s drug shortages database, the best-selling GLP-1 receptor agonist continues to be in shortage, though all of its doses are listed as “available.”
In June 2024, Novo injected $4.1 billion into its North Carolina operations, with an eye toward improving its production capacity for current and future injectable medicines for obesity and other chronic conditions. A few months earlier, in March 2024, the pharma announced that it was dropping $556 million to expand its China footprint, also aiming to increase manufacturing capabilities.
Arguably most controversial of its supply investments is the $16.5 billion acquisition of CDMO giant Catalent in February 2024. The deal was inked by sister entity Novo Holdings, but it includes a sale of three of Catalent’s fill-finish sites to Novo Nordisk. The merger has since garnered stiff scrutiny from the industry and from regulatory bodies.
