Novo Nordisk to gradually phase out human insulin pens globally

LONDON: Novo Nordisk is gradually ending production of human insulin pens, the drugmaker told Reuters, as it spends billions to ramp up manufacturing of its popular obesity and diabetes injections.

The company declined to comment on the timeline. “Globally (human insulin pens) will be phased out over time and human insulin will be available only in vials,” a spokesperson said.

In wealthy nations like the United States, the majority of people with diabetes now use modern or analogue insulin, not human insulin, because the former enables better blood sugar control. But in low and middle income countries, people with diabetes use human insulin, which is cheaper and easier to make.

Booming sales of the Danish drugmaker’s new obesity and diabetes medicines, delivered in injection pens, have propelled it to become Europe’s most valuable company by market value, at about $572 billion.

Novo Nordisk said in a statement to Reuters that the pens it uses for human insulin are not the same as those for its GLP-1 agonists Wegovy – a weight-loss treatment – and Ozempic, a diabetes drug.

Also read: Novo Nordisk launches weight-loss drug Wegovy in Britain

But the delivery devices are similar, and the company said last year it was shifting away from its century-long focus on making insulin to treat diabetes to making weight-loss drugs to combat obesity as a precursor to type 2 diabetes.

Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and advocacy group T1 International criticise Novo Nordisk’s focus on manufacturing pens for its new medicines – which are not yet available in poorer nations.

The groups see an emerging double standard in diabetes care: people with diabetes in high-income countries will not suffer from the halting of insulin pen production, because the company is continuing to make analogue insulin pens for those markets.

Pens are easier and more precise to use than syringes for injecting insulin.