Novo Nordisk is further boosting manufacturing in the US for its obesity drugs as it injects $4.1 billion for a second fill-finish facility in Clayton, NC.
But the Danish company is pulling back elsewhere. Novo has canceled plans for a new build in Ireland that was also intended to bolster GLP-1 production, a spokesperson confirmed to Endpoints News.
“Following an assessment, Novo Nordisk has made the decision to stop project activities in Grange Castle Business Park in Ireland. As a consequence, we will withdraw our planning application and not complete the acquisition of the land,” the spokesperson added.
Novo has at least seven global construction projects underway to increase its manufacturing footprint and has earmarked $6.8 billion for production investments this year. Excluding the new Clayton build, Novo has 16 sites globally, three of which are located in North Carolina.
The new Clayton facility will house capacity for aseptic manufacturing and fill-finish production for Novo’s injectable obesity and other chronic disease medicines. The site will add around 1,000 new jobs in North Carolina, where it already employs around 2,500 people.
Construction is expected to finish between 2027 and 2029. The build for the 1.4 million square-foot site will employ around 2,000 contractors, with clearing and foundational work already underway.
The new build will double the combined square footage of all of Novo’s sites in North Carolina, according to a Monday release. The company has three other sites in the state: One site in Clayton has API manufacturing and production for the oral GLP-1 drug Rybelsus; a second Clayton site handles fill-finish production of its injectable drugs; and a third site in Durham focuses on Rybelsus production.
Irish manufacturing
Meanwhile, news of what was to be a new build in Ireland was first reported in January when Novo said it would buy land at the Grange Castle Business Park near Dublin for $55.7 million. The site would have manufactured Novo’s obesity, diabetes and rare disease drugs. The build cancellation was first reported by The Sunday Times.
Novo established a presence in Ireland when it bought a facility from Alkermes in December 2023 for $92.5 million.
As for its other builds, Novo said in March it has allocated $556 million to expand its site in Tianjin, China, which is expected to be completed by 2027. Last year, the company poured roughly $8.5 billion into its manufacturing capacity, including a $6 billion expansion of its API site in Kalundborg, Denmark.
Novo is also waiting to take in three fill-finish sites from Catalent, with one located in Bloomington, IN, and the other two in Belgium and Italy. In February, Novo Holdings, the investment arm of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, said it will buy Catalent for $16.5 billion and sell three Catalent sites to Novo Nordisk for $11 billion.
There is high demand for Novo’s obesity and weight loss drugs. The company said Wegovy sales more than doubled in the first quarter of 2024, while Ozempic sales rose by 43%. And with high demand, it is currently having to address shortages. Three doses of Wegovy are in short supply in the US. In Europe, three doses of Ozempic continue to be in limited supply this year.
Novo’s rival, Eli Lilly, is equally ramping up capacity for its weight loss and obesity medications. In April, Lilly snapped up a site from Nexus Pharmaceuticals in Pleasant Prairie, WI, and in November last year it said it is budgeting $2.5 billion for a facility in Alzey, Germany.
North Carolina has attracted several new builds in 2024. Earlier this month, Kyowa Kirin selected Sanford, NC, for its first North American site, and Fujifilm Diosynth said it is investing $1.2 billion to expand its footprint in Holly Springs, NC.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to correct that the Novo-Catalent deal was announced in February, not March.