Stevanato's growth spree rolls on with China plant purchase, plans for 270 jobs

Far from its home base in Italy, Stevanato Group is flexing its vial-making muscles around the globe.

Early this month, the company announced a $95 million deal with the U.S. government to expand operations at its $145 million facility under construction in Fishers, Indiana. A week later, Stevanato says it has acquired a plant in Zhangjiagang, China.

Stevanato will renovate the new site, adding 7,000 square feet for a total of 32,000. The company plans to employ 270 there and double its current production capacity by 2024.

The new facility is near Stevanato’s current factory in the Jiangsu Zhangjiagang economic and technological development zone. The company is building a hub from which to run operations in China. Zhangjiagang is on the Yangtze River, upstream from Shanghai.

Stevanato says the plant will “support the Chinese pharmaceutical industry by streamlining the drug development supply chain in the country from lab through commercialization and help meet the increased demand for biologics.”

Stevanato will make EZ-fill syringes and vials at the site to meet the growing demand in the biotech and vaccine market. The facility will include a manufacturing area for visual inspection machines and glass-forming lines, it said. Production is expected to start in 2023, with the first EZ-fill lines due to be operational in early 2024.

“Beginning construction on our new manufacturing hub is an important milestone for Stevanato Group in a key market and will allow us to better serve local customers with premium drug containment solutions and machinery supply,” Stevanato CEO Franco Moro said in the release.

Stevanato has long thrived as a producer of glass vials. In 2019, when 12 billion vials were produced globally, Stevanato churned out 2 billion of them.

Stevanato, which raised $672 million in a public offering in late July, has spent the past few years building its portfolio of drug delivery systems that include a pen injector, an auto-injector, an inhaler and a wearable delivery system.

Last month, Stevanato announced it expanded its license deal for Haselmeier’s Axis-D pen injector to include conditions like obesity, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal and neurological disorders, pain and arthritis. Stevanato first signed a licensing deal with Haselmeier in 2019 to use the injector technology for diabetes.