The owner of Novo Nordisk is buying pharmaceutical company Catalent for $16.5 billion – Kommersant

The owner of Novo Nordisk is buying pharmaceutical company Catalent for $16.5 billion – Kommersant

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Danish Novo Holdings, which owns weight loss drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk, announced on the purchase of the American pharmaceutical company Catalent. The transaction amount will be $16.5 billion, including debt. Novo Holdings will pay Catalent shareholders $63.5 per share, representing a premium of 47.5% over the average share price over the past two months. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Catalent specializes in the filling and packaging of various medicinal injections. As noted by the head of Novo Holdings, Kasim Kutai, its purchase will help Novo Nordisk increase production of diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. Recently, their popularity as weight loss drugs has been growing. Under these conditions, the capitalization of Novo Nordisk at the end of January exceeded $500 billion. However, the use of such drugs for weight loss is controversial: it is reported that they can call a rare stomach disorder – its complete paralysis, as well as depressed state up to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

As experts note, it is the packaging and packaging of injections that is the stage that complicates the expansion of production of this kind of drugs. Catalent has previously partnered with Novo Nordisk to package its drugs. Under the terms of today’s deal, three Catalent plants – in the United States, Italy and Belgium – will switch exclusively to working with these drugs.

An analogue of Ozempic, a popular drug for controlling glucose levels produced by the Danish company Novo Nordisk, has appeared in Russia. Read more about this in the Kommersant article. “Pharmacies are reducing sugar”.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya

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