The contract manufacturer Catalent sent a letter to its customers Monday seeking to reassure them that little will change after the company’s deal with Novo Holdings, a transaction that will send several of its plants to Novo Nordisk.
In the open letter, which was reviewed by Endpoints News, Catalent said it would “continue to operate as a leading global, independent, full-service CDMO,” and that its commitment to customers won’t change.
Novo Holdings and Catalent announced the $16.5 billion deal in February. As part of the transaction, Novo Nordisk, which is partially owned by Novo Holdings, will acquire three major plants from Catalent. Those facilities are expected to be used to boost production of Novo’s blockbuster GLP-1 drugs, Wegovy and Ozempic.
Obesity drugs such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound have become some of the hottest new pharmaceutical products in recent history, with record demand pushing them into shortages. Both companies have raced to scale up manufacturing to meet what they hope will be long-lasting demand.
The deal between Novo Holdings and Catalent is currently under review by US antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission. While Catalent has said it expects the deal to close by the end of this year, there has been increasing noise from several corners calling for additional review.
Last week, labor unions and consumer groups wrote to the FTC arguing that the deal should be blocked, saying that the takeover by Novo would make it harder for new companies to get the manufacturing they need and compete. And on Oct. 9, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote to FTC Chair Lina Khan saying the deal needed further scrutiny.
In the letter to Catalent customers, CEO Alessandro Maselli said the deal would not change how it works with the industry, and that it would remain a separate business after the merger.
“I want to be clear: our commitments to you will not change, your products will remain our focus and your proprietary information will be protected,” Maselli wrote.
In a statement Monday, Novo Holdings said it was “confident” that the deal is “not anti-competitive” and still expects the transaction to close by the end of the year.
“We are unaware of any competitive GLP-1 products being manufactured for commercial sale at the three sites that Novo Nordisk is planning to acquire,” the Novo Holdings spokesperson told Endpoints.
Warren and the union groups are not the only ones to raise questions about the deal. Lilly is Novo’s lone rival at the moment with the GLP-1 drugs, and its CEO David Ricks has made a handful of comments saying the Catalent-Novo Holdings deal should be scrutinized.
On an August call with investors, Ricks said he was concerned about a major contract manufacturer that would be owned by a competitor.
“We’ve aired those concerns publicly and privately since the proposed transaction was announced, and we’re waiting to see what happens,” Ricks said at the time.
Zepbound was recently removed from the FDA’s shortages list, and the company works with contract manufacturers as well. Novo’s drug, meanwhile, remains on the FDA shortage list.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to add a statement from Novo Holdings. It was also corrected to clarify Novo Holdings’ ownership stake.