
Novo Nordisk to spend $747M+ on expansions and new facility in Denmark
The Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk is making a major expansion close to home.
The company announced on Tuesday that it plans to invest 5.4 billion Danish kroner ($747.2 million) into expanding its existing facilities in its hometown of Bagsværd, Denmark, a suburb of Copenhagen. Those plans also include the construction of a new plant.
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson did not confirm the size of the new plant to Endpoints News by press time. However, they did tell Endpoints that despite the expansion of existing facilities, the manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) is currently ongoing to support clinical trials. The expansions are expected to be finalized and fully operational in August of next year for purification. The new facility, which is centered around fermentation and recovery, is expected to be finalized in August 2024.
Novo Nordisk also plans to create more capacity for R&D activities and the production of APIs, mainly to supply its clinical trials as well as provide room for future development for its injectables and oral medicines, including in the diabetes and obesity treatment space, according to the spokesperson.
“This investment in expanding our clinical API capacity in Bagsværd is an important step to ensure the continuous progress of our development pipeline. Increasing our API capacity in R&D will be a key enabler in bringing new innovations to the market, and meet the future demand of our patients,” said Jesper Bøving, senior vice president of CMC development at Novo Nordisk, in a statement.
This is not the first time the company has dropped a massive amount for API manufacturing. According to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the company in 2019 spent $1.8 billion on a factory meant for Novo Nordisk’s diabetes medicines at its site in Clayton, NC. The project measured 833,000 square feet and was reported at the time to be the largest manufacturing investment in the state’s history.
The investment in Denmark also comes as the company put two programs in obesity and cardiovascular disease on the chopping block in its recent Q3 report. The company’s hoping for a Q4 rebound for Wegovy, its weight loss drug that ran into “unprecedented demand” on top of manufacturing issues last year.