Novo Nordisk Says It Is Gradually Phasing Out Human Insulin Pens Globally

LONDON (Reuters) -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. In low and middle income countries, human insulin is more commonly used than analogue insulin, which is more expensive and harder 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.

But the delivery devices are similar, and the company said last year that broader use of Wegovy could lead, longer-term, to fewer people with type 2 diabetes needing to take insulin, a medicine Novo Nordisk has made for a century.

Medical charity Medecins 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.

On Thursday, several hundred people gathered outside Novo Nordisk’s office in Johannesburg to protest the company’s discontinuation of human insulin pens, according to MSF, which helped organise the demonstration.

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

Some diabetes patients in the U.S. have this year pushed back against the company’s decision to stop selling its long-acting insulin Levemir, which is an analogue insulin. They say the move has left them struggling to switch treatments.

“We appreciate the impact our portfolio decisions will have on patients in South Africa and understand the frustration this may cause,” Novo Nordisk said in a statement. It added that it is in talks South African health authorities