Novo Nordisk plans to invest around US$2bn over the next five years in new production facilities in the US and Denmark in a move that will create around 800 jobs.
The Danish firm says the expansions in Clayton, North Carolina and Måløv, Denmark, will help it to meet increasing worldwide demand for its diabetes medicines.
The company also plans to initiate Phase IIIa development of oral semaglutide, a GLP-1 analogue formulated as a once-daily tablet for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The facilities in Clayton will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for both oral semaglutide and a range of current and future GLP-1 and insulin products.
Around 700 new production and engineering jobs will be created in Clayton where Novo Nordisk already has more than 700 staff.
Expanded several times since it went into operation in 1993, the current plant in Clayton handles formulation, filling and packaging of diabetes care products. The plant also assembles and packages the FlexPen and FlexTouch prefilled insulin device for the US market.
We will have sufficient API capacity for diabetes products well into the next decade
Novo Nordisk also plans to build a new production facility in Måløv for tableting and packaging of oral semaglutide and future oral products. This is expected to create around 100 new jobs.
There are currently 250 people at the plant, which produces tablets for hormone replacement therapy. The plant is located next to Novo Nordisk’s largest research and development campus, which employs more than 2,300 people.
The new facilities in Clayton and Måløv are expected to be operational during 2020.
'With the new plant in Clayton and continuous investments in our current API production plants in Kalundborg, Denmark, we will have sufficient API capacity for diabetes products well into the next decade,' said Henrik Wulff, Executive Vice President and Head of Product Supply at Novo Nordisk.
'We decided to place the new API facilities in the US for strategic reasons,' he added. 'The US is by far our largest market and there are many logistical and economic advantages of having a larger part of our manufacturing in our main market. After a thorough evaluation of multiple sites and an extensive vetting process, Clayton ended up being our preferred location.'
The final design and cost of the new production facilities will be presented for approval by the company’s board of directors in 2016.
