On Monday, Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company behind popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, announced it was planning on building a $4.1 billion facility in North Carolina.
The plant will be the Danish company’s second fill and finishing plant in Clayton, North Carolina, and its fourth facility in the area overall. It said that the decision to add another factory comes as the popularity of its drugs rises.
The company shared that the expansion’s goal is “to produce current and future injectable treatments for people with obesity and other serious chronic diseases.”
Novo Nordisk shared in its announcement that the new facility would expand over 56 acres and add 1.4 million square feet of production space.
Along with the new factory is the expectation of new jobs, which the company is estimating will be around 1,000.
However, the building isn’t expected to be ready for some time, as current projections have the facility being finalizedbetween 2027 and 2029. Still, Novo Nordisk shared that “early clearing and foundational work are already underway.”
“It took us a century to reach 40 million patients, but through this expansion and continued investment in our global production, we’re building Novo Nordisk’s ability to serve millions more people living with serious chronic diseases in the future,” Novo Nordisk president and CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen said in the press release. “This is yet another real signal of our efforts to scale up our production to meet the growing global need for our life-changing medicines and the patients of tomorrow.”
While the move is big for the company, it also comes as Novo Nordisk faces criticism from regulators and lawmakers in the US.
During an interview with CNN last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took aim at the company, saying it was “ripping off the American people.”
The remarks came after a report from earlier this year found that Americans were paying 10 to 15 times more for Ozempic and Wegovy than those in other countries.
The report found that Novo Nordisk charges around $1,300 a month for Wegovy in the United States. However, in Denmark, the drug is priced at $186 a month, $137 in Germany, and $92 in the United Kingdom.
Jørgensen has agreed to testify before Congress, with the hearing scheduled for September.