Danish drugmaker Novo ​Nordisk launched its weekly basal insulin injection, Awiqli, in India ⁠on Thursday (July 9, 2026), aiming to compete with daily-dose options on the market.

Awiqli, which Novo describes as the world’s first once-weekly basal, or background long-acting, insulin approved for clinical use, ‌is prescribed for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in adults, the company said.

It is ‌designed to reduce the number of injections from 365 per year ‌to ⁠52, Novo said. A once-weekly dose of 70 insulin units of ⁠Awiqli is priced at ₹261 ($2.74), Novo Nordisk India Managing Director Vikrant Shrotriya told reporters at the launch in New Delhi.

It will come in two variants: a 1 ml (700-unit) ​pen priced at ₹2,611, and ‌a 3 ml (2,100-unit) pen priced at ₹7,833.

That compares to ₹345- ₹453 for 70 units of daily-dose basal insulin products available in the market, he said. Awiqli will be rolled out ‌in the Indian market next week.

More than 101 million ​people in India are living with diabetes, while another 136 million have prediabetes, Novo said in a statement.

Insulin initiation in ⁠India is delayed by an average of 7-9 years, partly due to fear of injections, anticipated pain, and cost concerns, it said. India has about ‌6 million people on insulin therapy, a number that Novo Nordisk expects to rise to 9 million in the near future, Mr. Shrotriya said, adding that this would benefit the company commercially

India’s insulin market is projected to grow from $660.5 million in 2025 to $916.4 million by 2034, according to IMARC, driven by rising diabetes prevalence linked to sedentary lifestyles, poor diets, ‌and genetic predisposition.

Awiqli, known generically as insulin icodec, received U.S. approval earlier this year ​and has also been approved in the European Union and several other countries, the company said. India is the seventh ⁠country where the drug has been launched.

In India, the drug is ⁠expected to compete with other basal insulin brands such as Sanofi’s Lantus, as well as lower-cost insulin glargine products marketed by ‌domestic drugmakers such as Biocon, Eris Lifesciences and Lupin.

Separately, Novo is competing with Eli Lilly and a growing number of Indian generic ​drugmakers in the country’s expanding obesity-treatment market.

Vaccine maker Shantha Biologics has signed an agreement with Novo Nordisk to manufacture cartridges for injectable medicines at its Hyderabad plant for the Danish pharmaceutical major.

It will fill the cartridges and prepare them for use, which is the final and highly sensitive step in producing drugs like insulin and other injectable therapies, Shantha Biologics said, announcing the agreement.

The financial terms and production volumes, under the agreement, remain undisclosed, it said. Novo Nordisk is better known in recent months for its blockbuster diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.

“Novo Nordisk choosing us as a CDMO partner is a strong endorsement of the quality of our site, processes and technical capability. It validates years of investment in building manufacturing systems that meet the standards global innovators expect,” Shantha Biologics director Vishy Chebrol said in a press release.

He said the development also strengthens the case that India can be a serious partner in advanced manufacturing, not just a low-cost production base.

Cartridge fill-finish involves loading a drug into a slim, pre-filled cartridge that clicks into a pen injector, the format patients use to self-administer their own medication at home rather than in a hospital. The process demands sterile, contamination-free conditions and tight dosing accuracy, since the drug goes directly into the body. This manufacturing format is used across a range of chronic and long-term conditions, including diabetes, obesity and oncology treatments delivered through biologic therapies, the company said.

Shantha Biologics, which traces its roots to the Indian vaccine business founded by Varaprasad Reddy in 1993, entered a new chapter in 2024 under a consortium led by Ravi Penmetsa and Mr. Chebrol. Mr. Reddy now serves as chairman of the Board. The company runs two businesses today — one is the original vaccine business. The other is the cartridge fill-finish unit, built to serve rising demand for injectable drugs such as insulin, GLP-1 therapies and antibody treatments.

CDMO partnerships for biologic drugs — medicines made from living cells rather than chemicals — are powering a fast-growing global market. In 2025, it was valued at $25.32 billion and expected to grow to $38.29 billion by 2031, the company said, citing industry estimates.

Shantha Biologics said it plans to expand further in vaccines, biologics and injectable manufacturing as the demand grows. Without mentioning the existing headcount, it said the Hyderabad workforce is expected to increase to around 500 employees in near future.