COPENHAGEN: Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, maker of diabetes and weight-loss treatments Ozempic and Wegovy, said Monday it was investing 8.5 billion kroner ($1.2 billion) to build a new factory in Denmark to produce drugs against rare diseases.

The 40,000-square-metre (430,000-square-feet) production facility and warehouse in Odense “marks the first time in this century that Novo Nordisk breaks ground in Denmark by establishing a new production site,” the company said in a statement.

“Designed to be modular and flexible, it will accommodate multiple product types within rare disease, such as haemophilia, both now and in the future,” Novo Nordisk said.

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Henrik Wulff, executive vice president at Novo Nordisk, said the facility would help the company “meet the growing global demand for our life-changing medicines”.

In November, the drugmaker posted a 21-percent rise in net profit to 27.3 billion kroner ($3.85 billion) for the July-to-September period, but lamented capacity limitations at its production sites.

Novo Nordisk said that construction work on the Odense site had commenced and it is scheduled to be completed in 2027.

It is expected to create 400 jobs once completed.

Sales of Wegovy, which has been approved for use to treat obesity in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and the United States, rose by 42 percent in the first nine months of the year, according to Novo Nordisk.

Sales of the company’s other semiglutide bestseller, Ozempic – an injectable anti-diabetic treatment which has become popular for its slimming properties – soared by 54 percent in the same period.

Novo Nordisk has a hold on 74 percent of the market for weight-loss treatments.

The World Obesity Federation predicts that by 2035, over half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese and the global economic impact could then exceed $4 trillion a year.