An ambitious project that was hatched during the coronavirus pandemic has hit a key milestone as Sanofi has completed construction of Modulus, a vaccine and biological medicine plant that can be quickly reconfigured to respond to a potential pandemic.
Located in the eastern part of France in Neuville-sur-Saone, the facility is “revolutionary” and the first of its kind in the world, according to Sanofi.
The factory can manufacture up to four different vaccines or biologic medicines simultaneously and has the capability of transforming its technological platform within days or weeks to accommodate new production, a process which traditionally takes months or years to accomplish, the company said in a release.
In 2020, Sanofi invested nearly 500 million euros ($554 million) to build what it then called its Evolutive Vaccine Facility (EVF). The idea later evolved into including the manufacture of biologics.
Four years later, the 24,000-square-meter (258,000-square-foot) building is complete and scheduled to be operational by the end of 2025, with plans to employ 200.
In a traditional manufacturing complex, separate buildings house the production of different products, Sanofi explained. Modulus however includes 34 standardized “mini-factories" that are equipped with interconnected equipment, Sanofi said.
“We have reinvented everything, from the design of the building to the way we collaborated with health authorities, to imagine a factory that will be best able to meet the health challenges of patients in France and around the world,” Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in a release.
The project was conceived during a time when the industry was struggling to scale up the production of COVID-19 vaccines. At the time, Sanofi’s chief scientific officer Gary Nabel talked of the need for a “global biosecurity network” to be in place for future pandemics. Separately, he also blasted the pharmaceutical industry's “boom or bust" response to global pandemics, “where we throw resources and money at a problem when the horse is out of the barn.”
More recently, Sanofi last month said it would shell out 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to build a new insulin facility at its manufacturing campus in Frankfurt, Germany.
Also this year, Sanofi pledged to put up more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to increase its manufacturing capacity at three of its other sites in France.