Novo Nordisk plans to invest an estimated 2 billion US dollars over the next five years in new production facilities in Clayton, North Carolina, US and Måløv, Denmark. The expansions will help Novo Nordisk meet the increasing worldwide demand for its diabetes medicines.

In a separate company announcement today, Novo Nordisk 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 (company announcement 52/2015). 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.

The investment is estimated to create close to 700 new production and engineering jobs in Clayton where Novo Nordisk already employs more than 700 people.

Novo Nordisk also plans to establish a new production facility in Måløv, Denmark for tableting and packaging of oral semaglutide and future oral products. The investment in Måløv will create an estimated 100 new jobs.

"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," says Henrik Wulff, executive vice president and head of Product Supply at Novo Nordisk.

"We decided to place the new API facilities in the US for strategic reasons," adds Henrik Wulff. "The US is by far our largest market and there are many logistical and economic advantages of having a larger part of our manufacturing in our main market. 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 organisation 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 for approval by the company's board of directors in 2016. The facilities are expected to be operational during 2020.

About Novo Nordisk's production sites in Clayton, Kalundborg and Måløv
Expanded several times since it went into operation in 1993, Novo Nordisk's current plant in Clayton, NC 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.

Established in 1969, the Kalundborg production site is the largest in Novo Nordisk's global manufacturing network. Housing several production plants for both diabetes and haemophilia products, the site employs more than 2,800 people. Several hundred new jobs are expected in the coming years as a result of ongoing and future investments in the plants.

In Måløv, 250 employees today produce tablets for hormone replacement therapy. The current plant is located next door to Novo Nordisk's largest Research & Development campus, which employs more than 2,300 employees.