Novo Nordisk A/S is a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsværd[3] with production facilities in nine countries and affiliates or offices in five countries. Novo Nordisk is controlled by majority shareholder Novo Holdings A/S which holds approximately 28% of its shares and a majority (77%) of its voting shares.[4]
Novo Nordisk employs more than 48,000 people globally, and markets its products in 168 countries.[7] The corporation was created in 1989, through a merger of two Danish companies, which date back to the 1920s. The Novo Nordisk logo is the Apis bull, one of the sacred animals of ancient Egypt, denoted by the hieroglyph 𓃒. Novo Nordisk is a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).[8]
The company was ranked 25th among Fortune's100 Best Companies to Work For in 2010, and subsequently ranked 72nd in 2014 and 73rd in 2017.[9][10][11] In January 2012, Novo Nordisk was named the most sustainable company in the world by the business magazine Corporate Knights, while spin-off company Novozymes was named fourth.[12] It is a leader in the FTSE4Good Index, and the only European company in the top ten.[13] Novo Nordisk is the largest pharmaceutical company in Denmark.[14] Novo Nordisk's market capitalization exceeded the GDP of Denmark's domestic economy in 2023, and it is the highest valued company in Europe.[15]Revenue 2023 was 33.724 billion USD.
History
1923
Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium commercialises the production of insulin.[16]
1982–1994
The company established its presence in the United States in 1982[citation needed] and Canada in 1984.[17]
In 1986, Novo Industri A/S acquired the Ferrosan Group, now named as "Novo Nordisk Pharmatech A/S."
In 1989, Novo Industri A/S (Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium) and Nordisk Gentofte A/S (Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium) merged to become Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest producer of insulin with headquarters in Bagsværd, Copenhagen.[18]
In 1991, Novo Nordisk Engineering (now NNE A/S) demerged after working as in-house consultants at Novo Nordisk for years, to provide standard engineering services (end-to-end engineering) to pharma manufacturing companies.[19]
In 1994, Novo Nordisk's existing information technology units was spun out as NNIT A/S. The company was converted into a wholly owned aktieselskab in 2004[20] In March 2015, NNIT was floated on the Nasdaq Nordic.
Headquarters of Novo Nordisk USA, located in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
Novo acquired Xellia for $700 million in 2013.[22]
The same year, Novo Nordisk USA moved into new headquarters offices in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey, by way of extensively renovating abandoned premises. This action served to consolidate several facilities that the company had previously had in Plainsboro.[23]
In 2015, the company announced it would collaborate with Ablynx, using its nanobody technology to develop at least one new drug candidate.[24]
In January 2018, Reuters reported that Novo had offered to acquire Ablynx for $3.1 billion - having made an unreported offer in mid-December for the company.[25] However, the Ablynx board rejected this offer the same day, explaining that the price undervalued the business.[25] Ultimately Novo lost out to Sanofi who bid $4.8 billion. Later, in the same year, the company announced it would acquire Ziylo for around $800 million.[26]
2020–present
In March 2020, Novo volunteers started testing samples for SARS-CoV-2 with RT-qPCR equipment in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to increase available test capacity.[27] In June, the business announced it would acquire AstraZeneca's spin-off Corvidia Therapeutics for an initial sum of $725 million (up to a performance-related maximum of $2.1 billion), boosting its presence in cardiovascular diseases.[28] In November, the company announced it would acquire Emisphere Technologies for $1.8 billion, gaining control of a pill-based treatment for diabetes.[28][29] In December, Novo announced it would acquire Emisphere Technologies for $1.35 billion.[30]
In November 2021, Novo announced it would acquire Dicerna Pharmaceuticals and its RNAi therapeutics, for $3.3 billion ($38.25 per share).[31]
In September 2022, Novo agreed to acquire Forma Therapeutics for $1.1 billion with the intent to expand its sickle cell disease and rare blood disorders portfolio.[32]
By 2022 the popularity of Novo's Wegovy and Ozempic for weight loss was so great as to significantly increase growth of the entire economy of Denmark. In fact, two-thirds of Denmark's overall economic growth in 2022 was attributed to the pharmaceutical industry.[33]
The company's profits increased by 45% year over year in the first half of 2023.[6] Most of the growth occurred from its weight loss drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic, which accounted for 55% of the company's 2023 revenue.[34]
In August 2023, Novo agreed to acquire the Montreal-headquartered pharmaceutical company, Inversago Pharma for $1 billion[35] and Embark Biotech for up to $500 million.[36] In October 2023, the company announced it would acquire ocedurenone—an experimental drug for uncontrolled hypertension and potentially beneficial in treating cardiovascular and kidney diseases—from KBP Biosciences for $1.3 billion.[37]
In November 2023, Novo Nordisk announced investment of €2.1 billion in a French production facility to increase the production capacity and manufacturing of its popular anti-obesity medication.[38]
In February 2024, parent company Novo Holdings A/S agreed to acquire Catalent for $16.5billion. On completion, Novo Nordisk said it would acquire three manufacturing facilities from its parent for $11billion to scale up production to meet the massive demand for Wegovy and Ozempic.[39][40]
In March 2024 Novo Nordisk reached a $604 billion market capitalization and became the 12th most valuable company in the world. The company's stock jumped to a record high after early trial data showed positive results for its new experimental weight loss pill amycretin.[41] The company also announced it would acquire Cardior Pharmaceuticals and its cardiovascular disease portfolio for up to $1.1 billion.[42]
As of April 2024, the gusher of cash from its blockbuster weight-loss drugs was continuing to solidify Novo Nordisk's status as the most valuable company in Europe, to the point that economists were worried that Denmark might come down with Dutch disease (that is, a country that does only one thing well and nothing else).[43][44] The company's market capitalization of $570 billion remained larger than the entire economy of Denmark, its $2.3 billion income tax bill for 2023 made it the largest taxpayer in the country, and its rapid growth was driving nearly all of the expansion of Denmark's economy.[43][44] The company had started to move away from its traditional focus on diabetes care towards a more ambitious mission to "defeat serious chronic diseases", and towards that end, hired over 10,000 people in 2023 alone.[45] To effectively manage the rapid expansion of its workforce while maintaining its traditional corporate culture, the Novo Nordisk Way, the company put over 400 senior executives through a leadership development program called NNX, which stands for Novo Nordisk Next.[45]
In May 2024, the company announced it would acquire Austrian fluid management service business, Single Use Support.[46]
In June 2024 the company announced plans to build a new production plant in Clayton, North Carolina, at a cost of $4.1 billion. It will be the company's fourth in the state of North Carolina and used for production of semaglutide products Ozempic and Wegovy.[47]
As of October 2024, Novo Nordisk was the second most valuable drug company in the world by market capitalization, second only to its archrival Eli Lilly and Company.[48]
Novo Nordisk's largest manufacturing plant located in Kalundborg, Denmark
Novo Nordisk founded the World Diabetes foundation to save the lives of those affected by diabetes in developing countries and supported a UN (United Nations) resolution to fight diabetes, making diabetes the only other disease along with HIV / AIDS that the UN has a commitment to combat.[52]
Diabetic treatments account for 85% of Novo Nordisk's business. Novo Nordisk works with doctors, nurses, and patients, to develop products for self-managing diabetes conditions. The DAWN (Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs) 2001 study was a global survey of the psychosocial aspects of living with diabetes. It involved over 5,000 people with diabetes and almost 4,000 care providers.[53] This study was designed to identify barriers to optimal health and quality of life. A follow-up study completed in 2012 involved more than 15,000 people living with, or caring for, those with diabetes. In response to British findings, a National Action Plan (NAP) was developed, with a multidisciplinary steering committee, to support the delivery of individualised person-focused care in the United Kingdom. The NAP seeks to provide a holistic approach to a diabetic treatment for patients and their families.[54]
The i3-diabetes programme is a collaboration between the King's Health Partners, one of only six Academic Health Sciences Centres (AHSCs) in England, and Novo Nordisk. The programme is a five-year collaboration designed to deliver personalised care that will lead to improved outcomes for people living with diabetes, and more efficient and effective ways of caring for people with diabetes.[55][56]
In March 2014, Novo Nordisk announced a partnership program entitled ‘Cities Changing Diabetes,’ which entails combating urban diabetes. Partnership includes University College London (UCL) and supported by Steno Diabetes Center, as well as a range of local partners including healthcare professionals, city authorities, urban planners, businesses, academics and community leaders.[58]
A November 2014 newspaper article, suggested that a recent medical research breakthrough at Harvard University (creating insulin-producing cells from embryonic stem cells) could potentially put Novo Nordisk out of business. Dr Alan Moses, the chief medical officer of Novo Nordisk, commented that the biology of diabetes is incredibly complex, but also that Novo Nordisk's mission is to alleviate and cure diabetes. If this new medical advance "...meant the dissolution of Novo Nordisk, that'd be fine."[59]
In September 2023, Novo Nordisk and UNICEF announced a multi-year expansion of their collaboration to address childhood overweight and obesity.[60][61]
Research and pipeline
Novo Nordisk was researching pulmonary delivery systems for diabetic medications, and in the early stages of research into autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases, using technologies such as translational immunology and monoclonal antibodies.[62] In September 2014, the company announced a decision to discontinue all research in inflammatory disorders, including the discontinuation of R&D in anti-IL-20 for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.[63]
In September 2018, it was reported that the company would lay off 400 administrative staff, laboratory technicians and scientists, in Denmark and China in order to concentrate research and development efforts on “transformational biological and technological innovation”.[64]
In March 2013, a debate emerged in which scientists questioned whether the incretin class of diabetic medications – the class to which Victoza belongs – had an increased risk of side effects in the pancreas such as pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. It was concluded that data currently available did not confirm these concerns.[67]
In October 2013, batches of NovoMix 30 FlexPen and Penfill insulin were recalled in some European countries as their analysis had shown that a small percentage of the products in these batches did not meet the specifications for insulin strength.[68]
In September 2017, Novo Nordisk agreed to pay $58.7 million to end a United States Department of Justice probe into the lack of FDA disclosure to doctors about the cancer risk for their diabetic drug, Victoza.[69]
In March 2023, Novo Nordisk was suspended from the ABPI for a period of two years, for engaging in misleading marketing practices that amounted to "bribing health professionals with inducement to prescribe".[70] This is only the eighth time in the last 40 years that ABPI sanctioned a member organization.[71] Consequently, the Royal College of General Practitioners[72] and the Royal College of Physicians[73] ended their corporate partnerships as it would be in breach of their ethical guidance. The Novo Nordisk UK General Manager, Pinder Sahota, chose to resign as President of the ABPI prior to the suspension.[71]
On February 2, 2024 The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered that 55 lawsuits pending in federal courts be consolidated into a multidistrict litigation. The majority of the cases were against Novo Nordisk, but some were brought against Eli Lilly. The Ozempic Lawsuits allege gastroparesis ileus and other injuries caused by GLP-1 RAS. The Case is known as MDL No. 3094 In Re: Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1 RAS) Products Liability Litigation. As of August 6, 2024 there were 235 active Ozempic lawsuits.
In 2024 Novo Nordisk drug pricing in the US has been a target of lawmakers, including Senator Bernie Sanders and the Senate committee Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). The committee investigation found Novo Nordisk's drug Ozempic priced for $969 per month in the US, compared to $155 in Canada and $59 in Germany. Its weight-loss drug Wegovy is priced for $1,349 per month in the US compared to $140 in Germany and $92 in the UK.[34] In July 2024, US President Joe Biden joined Sanders in stating "Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly must stop ripping off Americans with high drug prices."[74]
As of the 2010s, Anthony Anderson (star of Black-ish) serves as a pitchman for Novo Nordisk, and featured in the company's television advertisements which aired in the US.[77]
^Innovative Medicines Initiative. "IMI Call Topics 2008". IMI-GB-018v2-24042008-CallTopics.pdf. European Commission. Archived from the original on 15 October 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2008.
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