KUALA LUMPUR, April 16 — Global biopharmaceutical company Sanofi will be investing €400 million (SG$639 million) over the next five years to set up a vaccine manufacturing site in Singapore.
The factory — with construction expected to begin in the third quarter of this year and to be fully operational by the first quarter of 2026 — will be designed to manufacture three to four vaccines simultaneously, said Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB), which is partnering with Sanofi, in a statement Monday.
This will allow innovative vaccines to be produced on a large scale for Asia, which allows quick response to future pandemic risks, said EDB.
Vaccines from this factory will be mainly supplying the Asian region and complement Sanofi’s existing manufacturing capacities in Europe and North America.
“Sanofi’s decision to locate its first-in-Asia digitally-enabled vaccine production centre in Singapore, to supply markets in the region and beyond, is an endorsement of Singapore’s position as a leading centre for advanced manufacturing,” said EDB chairman Beh Swan Gin.
Sanofi’s vaccines arm, Sanofi Pasteur, is a global vaccine developer and manufacturer with a portfolio of vaccines offering protection from various diseases, including influenza, infectious disease, and endemic diseases.
“By investing in a new production site in Singapore, Sanofi is aiming to strengthen production capacity to meet ever-growing global demands on vaccines, and answer more rapidly to future pandemics.
“We are very pleased by the strong collaboration with the Singapore Economic Development Board to achieve this exciting milestone,” said Thomas Triomphe, executive vice-president and global head of Sanofi Pasteur.
In 2019, Singapore ranked fourth globally on the International Property Rights Index 2019, which measures the strength of a country’s property rights regime for both intellectual and physical property rights. Singapore also ranked second in the world and top in Asia for having the best IP protection, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2019.
