AbbVie expands into Singapore
pharmafile | February 10, 2014 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | AbbVie, Abbott, Asia, Cancer, Singapore, oncology
AbbVie is expanding its manufacturing operation into Asia for the first time with a $320 million investment in a new facility in Singapore.
Set to be fully up and running in 2019, it will create more than 250 new jobs and will focus on small molecule and biologics active drug substances for products in AbbVie’s oncology and immunology pipeline.
These two therapy areas – along with liver disease, neuroscience and kidney disease – are the key focus for AbbVie since the new entity formally split from Abbott just over a year ago.
The new facility will not be arriving in a vacuum: the company already has 120 people in Singapore, involved in commercial business and global R&D and AbbVie also has R&D functions in the region, in Tokyo and Shanghai.
“As Asia’s fastest-growing bio-cluster, Singapore is an ideal location to expand our manufacturing network while maintaining rigorous standards of quality and delivery for the patients we serve around the world,” said Azita Saleki-Gerhardt, AbbVie’s senior vice president, operations.
“Our presence in Singapore will help assure geographic balance and continuity of product supply as well as increased capacity to deliver on our growing biologics and small molecule product pipeline,” said Saleki-Gerhardt.
AbbVie also manufactures at 12 sites across the US, Europe and Puerto Rico, and has various agreements with third-party manufacturers.
“This investment is a testament of Singapore’s strong biologics manufacturing capabilities,” said Kevin Lai, director of biomedical sciences of the Singapore Economic Development Board.
“To support the continued growth of this sector, Singapore will be investing heavily in human capital development, and new programmes will be put in place to train biologics manufacturing talent ahead of demand,” he added.
AbbVie has just announced its first full-year results as a standalone company, turning over $18.8 billion turnover in 2013 and anticipating an increase in revenue to $19 billion this year.
Adam Hill
Related Content
BMS’ Opdivo/Yervoy combination accepted by Scottish Medicines Consortium for colorectal cancer
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) has announced that its Opdivo (nivolumab) has been accepted, in combination …
Astellas Pharma’s Vyloy accepted by Scottish Medicines Consortium for gastric cancer
Astellas Pharma, a pharmaceutical company creating medicines to address unmet medical needs, has announced that …
Rethinking oncology trial endpoints with generalised pairwise comparisons
For decades, oncology trials have been anchored to a familiar set of endpoints. Overall survival …
