 "Oral insulin tablets; Image courtesy: Novo Nordisk")
Novo Nordisk will invest an estimated $ 2 billion over the next five years in new production facilities in Clayton, North Carolina (USA) and Malov (Denmark). The expansions will help Novo Nordisk meet the increasing worldwide demand for its diabetes medicines. The facilities are expected to be operational during 2020.
Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has announced a decision to initiate phase 3a 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 Novo Nordisk's current and future GLP-1 and insulin products.
Novo Nordisk also plans to establish a new production facility in Malov, Denmark for tableting and packaging of oral semaglutide and future oral products.
“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.
The company took the decision to set up the new API facilities in the US for strategic reasons. The US is by far Novo Nordisk’s largest market and there are many logistical and economic advantages of having a larger part of manufacturing activity in its main market. “We already have a large and very professional organisation in Clayton and an excellent collaboration with city, local and state leadership, and we appreciate the incentives they have secured in connection with this investment,” said Henrik Wulff.
Novo Nordisk's current plant in Clayton is today one of the company's strategic production sites responsible for 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.
The company’s Malov plant, which is located next to Novo Nordisk's largest research & development campus, produces tablets for hormone replacement therapy.
