To further entrench its roots in Singapore, Pfizer has opened the doors to a facility extension at a local plant to boost API production for its oncology, pain and antibiotic franchises.
The US drugmaker said Tuesday it inaugurated the $1 billion Singaporean dollar ($743 million) expansion at a site in Tuas Biomedical Park. The extension — which spans 429,000 square feet — is focused on making small-molecule APIs.
The new facility will create more than 250 jobs. It will also have a high level of automation among all of Pfizer’s manufacturing sites, Pfizer’s chief global supply officer Mike McDermott said, according to The Straits Times.
The Singaporean site first started making drugs in 2003, with work on the extension starting in 2020. The company said that the investment demonstrates its “continued commitment to operations” in Singapore, where it already has several hundred employees.
Several large drugmakers have been boosting their presence in the Southeast Asian country in recent months. In May, AstraZeneca set aside $1.5 billion to build a new facility in Singapore to manufacture antibody-drug conjugates. At the time, the UK drugmaker said this would be its first-ever site to cover every step of the ADC manufacturing process at the commercial level.
In March, Novartis started work on a $256 million manufacturing expansion that is focused on antibody-drug production. The news came two months after AbbVie committed $223 million to expand its Singapore site to increase biologics production capacity.
UK pharma GSK has three manufacturing sites in the country, which it’s working to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2025. The facilities employ more than 1,500 workers and make medicines for HIV, oncology and infectious diseases.
In 2022, Merck poured $500 million into a secondary packaging facility in Singapore as well as a separate plant to manufacture next-generation inhalers.