Denmark-based Novo Nordisk will invest $2 billion over the next five years to establish new production facilities in Clayton, North Carolina, and in Denmark.
The expansion is necessary for the company to meet demand for the diabetes medicines it produces. The facility in Clayton will be dedicated to the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients for both oral semaglutide and a variety of Novo Nordisk’s current and future GLP-1 and insulin products.
The existing plant in Clayton employs more than 700 people; the new facility is expected to lead to the creation of 700 new jobs.
"The new plant in Clayton and the planned upgrades of our current API production plants in Kalundborg, Denmark, will provide U.S. with sufficient API capacity for diabetes products well into the next decade,” Henrik Wulff, executive vice president and head of product supply at Novo Nordisk, said.“We considered different options both in the U.S. and Europe for where to place the new API facilities and decided on a U.S. site for strategic reasons.”
Wuluff said the United States was "by far" Novo Nordisk's largest market.
“There are many logistical and economic advantages of having a larger part of our manufacturing in our main market," Wuluff said. "After a thorough evaluation of multiple sites and an extensive vetting process, Clayton ended up being our preferred location. We already have a large and very professional organization there and an excellent collaboration with city, local and state leadership, and we appreciate the incentives they have secured in connection with this investment.”
The final design and cost of the new production facilities will be presented to the company’s board of directors for approval in 2016. The target date for the plant to be up and running is 2020.
The current Clayton plant opened in 1996 and has been expanded several times.
On the heels of the announcement about the expansion, Novo Nordisk officials also revealed the initiation of phase 3a development of oral semaglutide, a GLP-1 analogue formulated as a once-daily tablet for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
