Novo Nordisk has announced an investment of EUR 432 million ($502 million) to expand its tableting facility in Monksland, Athlone, Ireland, to produce current and future Novo Nordisk glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) treatments. It provides Novo Nordisk with additional manufacturing capabilities for oral products, enhances supply, and will support the upgrade and retrofit of the existing facility and enhance the company’s capacity to manufacture oral GLP-1s. The construction projects, which have already begun, will be finalized gradually from the end of 2027 through 2028. 

Novo received US Food and Drug Administration approval in late December 2025 for an oral formulation of its blockbuster obesity drug, Wegovy (semaglutide), and the company subsequently announced that the pill was launched in early January (January 2026). At the time of its approval, the company said it was the first GLP-1 receptor agonist (RA) therapy approved for weight management. 

Oral obesity drugs are the next key development in the GLP-1 market. Eli Lilly and Company’s orforglipron, is a once-daily oral administration to manage overweight/obesity and treat Type 2 diabetes and is the first oral, non-peptide, small-molecule GLP-1 RA to reach Phase III trials. Near term, the drug is expected to launch in 2026 in the US for treating Type 2 diabetes, and in 2027 in the US for treating obesity and in the European Union (EU), Japan, and the UK for treating obesity and Type 2 diabetes in 2027, according to industry analysts. The drug is also being evaluated for obstructive sleep apnea and hypertension in individuals with obesity. 

Lilly is investing $1.2 billion to expand an existing manufacturing facility for oral solid medicines, including for manufacturing orforglipron, in Puerto Rico. The company is also building a new $3-billion manufacturing facility in Katwijk, the Netherlands, to expand its capacity to produce oral solid medicines in cardiometabolic health, neuroscience, oncology, and immunology, including for orforglipron.  

Source: Novo Nordisk