Novo Nordisk ploughs another $2bn+ into GLP-1 production

Having pledged $6 billion to expand facilities in Denmark, Novo Nordisk will now increase capacity at its Chartres, France site to support obesity and diabetes products.

An investment of more than 16 billion Danish kroner ($2.35 billion) is being made at the Chartres site – located 50km southwest from Paris – to support Novo Nordisk’s products and pipeline, including its growing range of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs.

According to the firm, the investment will “significantly increase the capacity of the manufacturing site” and “increase Novo Nordisk’s ability to meet future demands for innovative medicines.”

The firm’s website says the site in Chartres has made products for Novo Nordisk for more than 60 years, with more than eight million patients globally accessing insulin made at the site annually.

The investment will “more than double the footprint of the site,” the firm said, creating more than 500 jobs as it comes online, between 2026 and 2028, though a spokesperson did not give details as to how much capacity the site will offer.

The news comes days after Novo Nordisk announced plans to pump over 42 billion Danish kroner ($6.15 billion) into its native Kalundborg site. The planned 170,000 square-meter facility is said to have been designed to meet current and future process demands, again with capacity for GLP-1 products.

Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 products include semaglutide, commercialized as a weight-loss blockbuster in the form of Wegovy and as a diabetes drug through Ozempic. For the first nine months of 2023, the former brought in close to $3.2 billion in sales, while the latter added $9.62 billion to Novo Nordisk’s topline.