By Patrick Wingrove
(Reuters) – Novo Holdings, the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO), hopes to double the size of its recently acquired contract drugmaker Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) over five years, a senior partner at the investment firm said, as it prepares for a likely focus on U.S. manufacturing by President-elect Donald Trump.
Novo Holdings last month closed a $16.5 billion deal to buy U.S.-based Catalent. The firm then sold three of Catalent’s plants used to complete the drug manufacturing process to Novo Nordisk for $11 billion as part of the deal, to help the Danish drugmaker ramp up supplies of its popular weight-loss drug Wegovy.
Jonathan Levy, the Novo Holdings partner who led the deal, in an interview this week said his firm did not want to overcommit to a revenue target before it had a chance to set out a corporate strategy with Catalent’s management.
“But doubling the size of your business over five years is always a nice barometer to work on, and I think we could do something more here from an enterprise value perspective,” Levy told Reuters at the JPMorgan health conference in San Francisco.
Catalent, which had sales of $4.38 billion in 2024, will hold its next board meeting in February, according to Levy.
Levy said he expects more drugmakers that currently rely on manufacturers in China and India to look for western service providers with Trump set to return to the White House on Monday, given his America first focus.
Catalent and Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) unit Patheon — two of the largest contract drug manufacturers based in the U.S. — could be beneficiaries of such moves.
In addition to his outspoken preference for U.S. manufacturing, Trump has said he will hit China with new tariffs on the first day of his presidency, but Levy did not discuss how that might affect pharmaceuticals.
Levy said Novo Holdings has a venture vehicle with more than 90 biopharmaceutical assets that will be “a tremendous pipeline” for Catalent.
He also said he was closely watching lawmaker efforts to pass a bill that would restrict U.S. business with certain Chinese biotechnology companies, including contract drug manufacturer WuXi AppTec.
“Companies like WuXi, for example, they (will) struggle as a result of it,” Levy said, “and companies like Catalent will benefit.”
