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> Reviewed by FormBlends Medical Team · Last updated May 2026 · 12 sources cited
Key Takeaways
- Ozempic is manufactured by Novo Nordisk A/S, headquartered in Bagsvaerd, Denmark.
- Novo Nordisk's history dates to 1923 with the founding of Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium; the modern company formed in 1989 with the merger of Nordisk and Novo.
- The company's GLP-1 portfolio includes Ozempic and Wegovy (injectable semaglutide), Rybelsus (oral semaglutide), Saxenda (liraglutide for obesity), and Victoza (liraglutide for diabetes).
- Novo Nordisk is majority-controlled by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, one of the largest charitable foundations in the world, which uses its dividends to fund scientific research.
- The company shares the GLP-1 obesity market with Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Mounjaro and Zepbound, in what has become a two-company race.
Direct answer
Ozempic is made by Novo Nordisk A/S, a Danish pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsvaerd, near Copenhagen. Novo Nordisk has manufactured diabetes medications for more than a century, traces its origins to two Danish insulin pioneers in the 1920s, and developed semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus) as part of a multi-decade GLP-1 research program. The company is publicly traded but majority-controlled by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.
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Start Free Assessment →Table of contents
- Novo Nordisk at a glance
- The founding story: from insulin pioneers to GLP-1 leaders
- The semaglutide development arc
- The full Novo Nordisk obesity and diabetes portfolio
- Where Novo Nordisk operates
- The Novo Nordisk Foundation ownership structure
- Competitive position relative to Eli Lilly
- The compounding question and Novo Nordisk's response
- What the company makes besides GLP-1s
- FAQ
- Sources
Novo Nordisk at a glance
| Legal name | Novo Nordisk A/S |
| Headquarters | Bagsvaerd, Denmark |
| Founded | 1989 (merger); roots in 1923 (Nordisk) and 1925 (Novo) |
| Stock listings | Nasdaq Copenhagen; NYSE (ticker NVO) |
| Therapeutic focus | Diabetes, obesity, hemophilia, growth disorders |
| Flagship products | Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, Saxenda, Victoza, Tresiba, NovoLog |
| Majority shareholder | Novo Nordisk Foundation (via Novo Holdings) |
The founding story: from insulin pioneers to GLP-1 leaders
The story begins with insulin. In 1922, Frederick Banting and Charles Best in Toronto purified insulin for the first time. The University of Toronto licensed insulin production rights to research groups around the world.
In Denmark, two separate research programs took up the work.
Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium (1923). Founded by August Krogh, a Nobel laureate physiologist, and the physician Hans Christian Hagedorn, after Krogh and his wife visited Toronto to bring insulin production to Europe. Hagedorn would later develop protamine zinc insulin, an early long-acting formulation.
Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium (1925). Founded by the brothers Harald and Thorvald Pedersen, who had previously worked at Nordisk. The two companies operated as competitors in Denmark for decades.
The two merged in 1989 to form Novo Nordisk, which then concentrated on diabetes care with a research base in protein and peptide engineering. That research base would prove critical when GLP-1 emerged as a therapeutic target.
The semaglutide development arc
GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) was identified in the 1980s as a gut hormone that stimulates insulin release in response to food. Native GLP-1 had a clinical problem: it was broken down by an enzyme called DPP-4 within minutes of release. Any therapeutic GLP-1 needed to resist DPP-4 degradation.
Novo Nordisk's program addressed that problem through molecular engineering.
- Liraglutide (Victoza, approved 2010 in the US for diabetes; Saxenda, approved 2014 for chronic weight management). A modified GLP-1 with a fatty-acid chain that binds reversibly to albumin, extending the half-life enough for once-daily dosing.
- Semaglutide (Ozempic, approved December 2017 in the US for type 2 diabetes; Wegovy, approved June 2021 for chronic weight management; Rybelsus, approved September 2019 as an oral formulation). Further amino-acid substitutions and a different fatty-acid linker that extended the half-life to roughly one week, enabling once-weekly injection.
The pivotal weight-loss trial for semaglutide was STEP 1 (Wilding et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2021), which reported a mean weight loss of approximately 14.9 percent of body weight over 68 weeks at 2.4 mg weekly. The cardiovascular outcomes program, including SUSTAIN-6 (Marso et al., NEJM, 2016) and SELECT, established cardiovascular benefit.
The full Novo Nordisk obesity and diabetes portfolio
| Product | Active ingredient | Approved use | Route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ozempic | Semaglutide | Type 2 diabetes; cardiovascular risk reduction | Weekly injection |
| Wegovy | Semaglutide | Chronic weight management | Weekly injection |
| Rybelsus | Semaglutide | Type 2 diabetes | Daily oral tablet |
| Saxenda | Liraglutide | Chronic weight management | Daily injection |
| Victoza | Liraglutide | Type 2 diabetes | Daily injection |
| Tresiba | Insulin degludec | Diabetes (long-acting) | Daily injection |
| Levemir | Insulin detemir | Diabetes (long-acting) | Daily injection |
| NovoLog | Insulin aspart | Diabetes (rapid-acting) | Mealtime injection |
The company's pipeline through 2025 included CagriSema (a semaglutide and cagrilintide combination), oral semaglutide for obesity at higher doses, and amycretin, an investigational dual-agonist molecule.
Where Novo Nordisk operates
Novo Nordisk's headquarters complex in Bagsvaerd houses corporate operations and Danish R&D. The company's major global sites include:
- Denmark. Production facilities in Kalundborg, Hillerod, and other locations make active pharmaceutical ingredients and finished products.
- United States. Novo Nordisk Inc. is headquartered in Plainsboro, New Jersey. Manufacturing operations in Clayton, North Carolina, perform fill-finish work for products distributed in North America.
- France. Chartres is a major production site.
- Brazil. Montes Claros supplies Latin American markets.
- Japan and China. Local affiliates and production support Asian markets.
Novo Nordisk announced major manufacturing capacity expansions through 2024 and 2025 in response to demand for semaglutide, including additional fill-finish capacity in the United States.
The Novo Nordisk Foundation ownership structure
An unusual feature of Novo Nordisk is its ownership. The Novo Nordisk Foundation, a Danish charitable foundation founded in 1989, holds the majority voting interest in Novo Holdings A/S, which in turn is the largest shareholder of Novo Nordisk A/S.
This structure means:
- Public shareholders own a substantial portion of the economic interest in the company.
- The foundation retains majority voting control and provides governance stability.
- Dividends flowing to the foundation are used to fund scientific research and humanitarian initiatives in Denmark and globally.
By assets, the Novo Nordisk Foundation has become one of the largest charitable foundations in the world, with significant grants to medical research, climate science, and other priorities.
Competitive position relative to Eli Lilly
The GLP-1 obesity market has effectively two players at scale.
| Novo Nordisk | Eli Lilly | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bagsvaerd, Denmark | Indianapolis, USA |
| Founding | 1989 (merger); roots in 1923 | 1876 |
| Main GLP-1 product (diabetes) | Ozempic (semaglutide) | Mounjaro (tirzepatide) |
| Main GLP-1 product (obesity) | Wegovy (semaglutide) | Zepbound (tirzepatide) |
| Oral formulation | Rybelsus | Orforglipron (investigational) |
| Mechanism difference | Single agonist at GLP-1 receptor | Dual agonist at GIP and GLP-1 receptors |
The two companies compete on efficacy data, formulary access, supply reliability, and price. They also share a common regulatory burden and, in MDL No. 3094, common product-liability litigation.
The compounding question and Novo Nordisk's response
During the 2022 through early 2025 semaglutide shortage, state-licensed compounding pharmacies were permitted to compound semaglutide for individual patients under specific FDA-recognized conditions. After the FDA removed semaglutide from the shortage list in February 2025, the legal basis for ongoing compounding under shortage tolerance narrowed substantially.
Novo Nordisk has pursued legal action against certain compounding pharmacies, clinics, and telehealth platforms that, in the company's view, marketed compounded semaglutide as equivalent to Ozempic or Wegovy. The company has also pursued cases involving products marketed as "semaglutide" that did not match the FDA-approved active ingredient.
Patients on compounded semaglutide should understand that compounded products are not FDA-approved, are prepared by state-licensed compounding pharmacies in response to individual prescriptions, and are not interchangeable with the brand-name products manufactured by Novo Nordisk.
What the company makes besides GLP-1s
While GLP-1s dominate Novo Nordisk's revenue, the company maintains a broader portfolio.
- Insulins. A century of insulin expertise produced products including Tresiba (degludec), Levemir (detemir), NovoLog (aspart), and various combination products.
- Hemophilia therapeutics. NovoSeven, NovoEight, and other coagulation factors serve patients with bleeding disorders.
- Growth disorders. Norditropin (somatropin) treats pediatric growth deficiencies.
- Pipeline assets. CagriSema, amycretin, and several other early-stage molecules targeting metabolic disease.
The company's R&D investments emphasize cardiometabolic disease, which keeps the GLP-1 franchise central even as the pipeline diversifies.
The contrary view: why a single-company dominance is itself a problem
A balanced reading of Novo Nordisk's market position acknowledges concerns about concentration.
Concerns commonly raised by patients, payers, and policymakers include:
- Pricing. US list prices for semaglutide are far higher than prices in other developed markets.
- Supply concentration. When a single manufacturer dominates production, shortages cascade widely.
- Patent strategy. Extension of patent life and formulation patents can delay generic or biosimilar competition.
- Litigation posture. Aggressive enforcement against compounders during shortage periods raised access concerns for patients caught between supply gaps.
These concerns are not unique to Novo Nordisk; they apply across the patented pharmaceutical industry. They do, however, give context to debates over GLP-1 access and pricing that will continue through the rest of the decade.
Compounded medication note for this topic
For Who Makes Ozempic? Inside Novo Nordisk, the Danish Company Behind the GLP-1 Era, keep the pharmacy distinction clear: when compounded semaglutide or tirzepatide is prescribed, it is prepared for an individual patient by a licensed 503A compounding pharmacy. Compounded preparations are not FDA-approved drug products and are not interchangeable with Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, or Zepbound.
The practical question is not whether a compounded medication is a brand substitute. It is whether the prescription, pharmacy label, concentration, follow-up plan, and adverse-event support are clear enough for your specific medical history.
FAQ
Who makes Ozempic?
Novo Nordisk A/S, a Danish pharmaceutical company headquartered in Bagsvaerd.
Is Novo Nordisk an American company?
No. Novo Nordisk is Danish. It has substantial US operations, including a North American headquarters in New Jersey and manufacturing in North Carolina, but the parent company is European.
Who founded Novo Nordisk?
The modern company formed in 1989 from a merger. The original predecessors were founded by the Nobel laureate August Krogh and the physician Hans Christian Hagedorn (Nordisk, 1923) and by the brothers Harald and Thorvald Pedersen (Novo, 1925).
What is the active ingredient in Ozempic?
Semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist developed by Novo Nordisk.
How is Ozempic different from Wegovy?
Both contain semaglutide. Ozempic is FDA-approved for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular risk reduction. Wegovy is FDA-approved for chronic weight management at higher doses. The active molecule is the same.
What is Novo Holdings?
Novo Holdings A/S is the investment vehicle owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. It holds the foundation's majority position in Novo Nordisk and also invests in other life sciences companies.
Is the Novo Nordisk Foundation a charity?
Yes. It is a Danish enterprise foundation that funds scientific research and humanitarian initiatives. Its grants make it one of the largest charitable funders of biomedical research globally.
Who is Novo Nordisk's main competitor?
Eli Lilly and Company, headquartered in Indianapolis. Lilly manufactures Mounjaro and Zepbound (tirzepatide), the primary clinical alternatives to Ozempic and Wegovy.
Where can I find Novo Nordisk's financial reports?
The company files quarterly and annual reports through its investor relations site and, for US listing purposes, with the SEC.
Does Novo Nordisk make compounded semaglutide?
No. Novo Nordisk manufactures only the FDA-approved brand-name products. Compounded semaglutide is prepared by state-licensed compounding pharmacies under individual prescriptions and is not interchangeable with brand-name Ozempic or Wegovy.
Related guides
- Who Makes Wegovy? Novo Nordisk's Obesity-Indication Brand of Semaglutide
- Where Is Ozempic Manufactured? Mapping Novo Nordisk's Global Supply Chain
- The Blurry Eyes Phase: Why Ozempic Makes Vision Hazy and When It Clears
- How Many Clicks Are in a 1 mg Ozempic Pen? The Math Behind the Counter
- Creatine on Ozempic: How a Simple Supplement Helps Preserve Muscle During GLP-1 Weight Loss
Sources
- Novo Nordisk A/S. Annual Report 2024.
- Novo Nordisk Foundation. Annual Report 2024. Charitable distributions and governance.
- US Food and Drug Administration. Ozempic Prescribing Information.
- US Food and Drug Administration. Wegovy Prescribing Information.
- US Food and Drug Administration. Rybelsus Prescribing Information.
- Wilding JPH, Batterham RL, Calanna S, et al. Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity (STEP 1). New England Journal of Medicine. 2021.
- Marso SP, Bain SC, Consoli A, et al. Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes (SUSTAIN-6). New England Journal of Medicine. 2016.
- Lincoff AM, Brown-Frandsen K, Colhoun HM, et al. Semaglutide and Cardiovascular Outcomes in Obesity without Diabetes (SELECT). New England Journal of Medicine. 2023.
- Bliss M. The Discovery of Insulin. University of Chicago Press. 1982.
- Novo Nordisk. Company history and Bagsvaerd headquarters profile.
- US Food and Drug Administration. Drug Shortages Database. Semaglutide resolution, February 21, 2025.
- Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. MDL No. 3094 docket.
Footer disclaimers
Platform Disclaimer. FormBlends is an independent digital health platform. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Novo Nordisk. The information here is for educational use and not a substitute for clinical care.
Compounded Medication Notice. Compounded semaglutide is not FDA-approved. It is prepared by a state-licensed compounding pharmacy under an individual prescription and is distinct from Ozempic or Wegovy. Novo Nordisk does not manufacture compounded semaglutide.
Results Disclaimer. Outcomes from any GLP-1 medication vary by individual. Trial averages described in this article do not predict any particular patient's response.
Trademark Notice. Ozempic, Wegovy, Rybelsus, Saxenda, Victoza, Tresiba, Levemir, NovoLog, NovoSeven, NovoEight, and Norditropin are registered trademarks of Novo Nordisk A/S. Mounjaro and Zepbound are registered trademarks of Eli Lilly and Company. FormBlends is not affiliated with any of these companies.
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