Novo Nordisk wants to boost India GCC capacity, but no plans for production unit

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Danish drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk plans to scale up its operations in India by expanding its collaborations with its existing partners, said John Dawber, corporate vice-president and managing director for Global Business Services (GBS) at Novo Nordisk. Despite facing a significant shortage of its famous and in-demand diabetes and weight-loss drugs globally, collaborations, Dawber told Mint, will be the extent of Novo’s operations in India as it already has “strategic production sites across the globe for manufacturing". “The Indian set-up is the crown jewel of Novo Nordisk.

We have been doing contract manufacturing here per our quality guidance, licence, etc. And so, we would like to expand that kind of collaboration," he said. “We have gradually been increasing the functions performed in Bangaluru, and now we are doing all sorts of global work here, clinical data management, supply chain management, etc.

So, I believe we would like to continue working on elevating this work," he added. The company has been finding it difficult to meet the ever-increasing demand for its GLP-1 products or obesity and diabetes drugs. In order to meet the short-term gap between demand and supply, it plans to expand manufacturing capacities at its existing production sites rather than setting up a new manufacturing hub.

Novo, though, will continue to collaborate with local manufacturers in India with a possibility of collaborating for Novo’s in-demand drugs as well. “I think it's possible that we might collaborate for GLP-1 products with Indian manufacturers, but that's out of the scope of my role, as it’s very much a global operation, and the decision is for the headquarters to make," Dawber said. The company’s operation in