A new stage in Emmanuel Macron’s reindustrialization plan. The Head of State is present, this Thursday, November 23, at the Novo Nordisk factory in Chartres, to unveil an investment of more than 2 billion euros from the Danish pharmaceutical giant, in the production of drugs against diabetes and obesity in France. He is accompanied by the Ministers of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, and of Industry, Roland Lescure.
Thanks to this investment, the Novo Nordisk laboratory will double the surface area of its Chartres factory to 230,000 square meters and create “more than 500 new jobs”, which will be added to the 1,600 already existing. The project should be finalized in 2028, specifies the firm. This new plan will therefore make it possible to boost production at the site, which currently specializes in insulin cartridges and vials distributed in 85 countries, to deal with shortages. It should also make it possible to extend production to treatments against obesity, in high global demand.
Explosion in global demand for appetite suppressants
In a context of shortage of insulin treatment for diabetes and explosion in global demand for appetite suppressant drugs, Novo Nordisk is experiencing rapid development. The multinational’s turnover jumped 33% over the first nine months of the year. Sales of its antidiuretic treatment Ozempic increased by 49%, and those of its anti-obesity treatment, Wegovy… by 174%. Despite the lack of medical indication, the injectable antidiabetic drug Ozempic is particularly popular on social networks for its weight loss properties. Health Insurance and the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) had also launched an alert and placed the drug under “reinforced surveillance” in France last March. Wegovy, for its part, is a treatment for obesity launched in the United States two years ago and marketed only in Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom and Germany.
To support demand, Novo Nordisk was first forced to impose sales limitations in the United States and slow down the deployment of Wegovy in Europe. At the same time, the firm has already invested more than 5 billion dollars last year, before announcing a plan of 5.7 billion new worldwide at the beginning of November. The goal, according to the Danish giant: “Expand existing manufacturing facilities in Kalundborg, Denmark, for the current and future product portfolio for serious chronic diseases.” These large-scale investments should make it possible to accelerate the manufacturing of semaglutide, the molecule behind the two blockbuster drugs.
Largest market capitalization in Europe
Its American competitor, the pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly, also announced last week an investment of 2.3 billion euros in Germany to increase the production of its antidiabetic Mounjaro, and its antiobesity Zepbound, both based on the molecule tirzepatide which has just obtained the green light from the American health authority. Around 160 million dollars should also be injected into its factory in Fegersheim, in Alsace, from 2026.
Novo Nordisk has become the largest European market capitalization ahead of luxury giant LVMH since September, thanks to the success of its pharmaceutical products. In 2023 alone, the group has invested 10 billion euros across its entire production base, including the “strategic” Chartres factory whose treatments are taken by more than 10 million diabetics in the world every day.