Novo Nordisk set to make Wegovy weight loss pill in Ireland for markets outside US

DCM Editorial Summary: This story has been independently rewritten and summarised for DCM readers to highlight key developments relevant to the region. Original reporting by Irish Times, click this post to read the original article.

Wight loss drug company Novo Nordisk will expand its facility in Athlone, chief executive Mike Doustdar says.

The launch of the Wegovy in pill form in early January has been one of the most successful pharmaceutical debuts ever, with more than 240,000 Americans taking it already, Doustdar said.

Novo is hoping the pill will form a big part of its fight to reclaim share in a weight-loss market it once dominated and make up ground lost to rival Eli Lilly, which makes the blockbuster drug Zepbound.

Doudstar said the popularity of Wegovy in pill form could eventually outpace that of the injectable version of the drug.

The Athlone investment will see the company manufacture Wegovy pills here for markets outside the United States. Novo makes the obesity pill for the US market in the US.

“If we were about to throw in the towel, we would not be investing in factories in Ireland,” Doustdar said.

Novo Nordisk acquired the long established former Elan Drug Technologies plant from Irish-headquartered pharma group Alkermes in 2024 in a deal that was worth €85 million at the time. It came as the Danish group was rapidly expanding manufacturing capacity to meet demand for Wegovy and its related diabetes therapy Ozempic.

Around two years ago, the Danish drugmaker pulled out of plans to build a factory near Dublin.

In September last year, it announced plans to cut up to 75 of the 400 jobs at the Irish plant as part of a 9,000 reduction in headcount worldwide. The Irish redundancies – amounting to just shy of 19 per cent of the Athlone workforce at the upper end – were ahead of the 11.5 per cent average cut worldwide.

Doustdar declined to comment on the scale of the investment in Athlone.

The announcement come a day after Novo said it would follow the lead of its rival in offering vials of Wegovy alongside injectables and pills

That came just a week after the company warned investors of a fall of up to 13 per cent in sales this year on the back of an intensifying price war in obesity drugs under pressure from the Trump administration, which knocked 20 per cent off the value of the group’s shares.

The company has also been involved in a row with US group, Hims & Hers Health, which said it would sell its own version of the Wegovy pill for just a third of the $149 price being charged by Novo before being warned off by the Food and Drug Administration.

Ireland is an international hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Lilly produces active ingredients for its blockbuster weight-loss and diabetes drugs there.

The State’s economy is highly dependent on US investment and it has found itself at the centre of US president Donald Trump’s threats to reshore profits and impose tariffs. – Bloomberg