© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Flags with the Novo Nordisk emblem flutter exterior their Danish firm’s workplaces in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 26, 2023. REUTERS/Tom Little
By Maggie Fick and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen
LONDON/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Novo Nordisk (NYSE:) desires to purchase extra corporations with medicine in early- to mid-stages of improvement by way of “bolt-on” offers of up to a couple billion {dollars}, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen informed Reuters on Friday.
As the corporate’s fortunes soar on demand for its common weight-loss medication Wegovy, Jorgensen mentioned Novo sought to amass corporations engaged on medicines within the areas the place it’s already targeted.
“So diabetes, weight problems, heart problems, the entire cardiometabolic house, but additionally within the uncommon blood problems, haemophilia, sickle cell, we consider that we have now a stronghold there,” he mentioned in an interview.
“We are going to constantly be taking a look at smaller bolt-ons, sometimes early stage, section 1 and section 2, tasks and sometimes of a really modest quantity of some billion {dollars},” he added.
Novo’s M&A technique focuses on illness or therapeutic areas the place the corporate has a “deep organic understanding”, and likewise on “a set of applied sciences” the corporate desires to leverage, he added. He cited “protein engineering,” saying the corporate had executed that for yr.
The corporate’s analysis and improvement (R&D) engine is undamaged and due to this fact it’s unlikely to do transformative offers quickly, Jorgensen mentioned.
He spoke after the corporate introduced it could make investments round $6 billion in certainly one of its Danish manufacturing amenities within the coming years.
Final month Novo mentioned it had agreed to purchase a drug for uncontrolled hypertension that would doubtlessly be utilized in cardiovascular and kidney illness, from Singapore-headquartered biotech agency KBP Biosciences for as much as $1.3 billion. It was the most recent in a collection of similarly-sized offers the corporate has executed this yr.
After focusing for practically a century on insulin, demand for the Danish drugmaker’s weight problems medicine has made it Europe’s Most worthy firm and its share value is up 49% this yr.
Final week, when reporting quarterly earnings, it forecast one other yr of double-digit gross sales progress for its two hottest medicine: weight-loss drug Wegovy and diabetes Ozempic.
To maintain up with demand, Novo is racing to extend manufacturing of these medicine, which comprise the identical energetic pharmaceutical ingredient, semaglutide, and are delivered in self-injection pens.
A healthcare banker, talking on situation of anonymity, informed Reuters after the interview there have been many corporations within the cardiometabolic house with early-stage medicine that Novo Nordisk might be able to purchase.