Shortly after a similarly sized venture from Pfizer, French pharma juggernaut Sanofi has unveiled a major manufacturing outlay in China, marking its biggest investment in the country to date.
Sanofi is laying out roughly 1 billion euros ($1.04 billion) to establish a new production base in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, according to a notice (Chinese) posted by Sanofi China on Monday.
The new manufacturing site, which will become Sanofi’s fourth in China, is being designed to beef up local end-to-end insulin production and bolster the drugmaker’s production firepower more broadly.
Apart from the new insulin facility, Sanofi also boasts a separate manufacturing site in China’s capital of Beijing, plus production operations in the cities of Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
The latest project marks the company’s largest recorded investment in the country, Sanofi said in its notice.
By the end of 2021, 140 million adults in China were living with diabetes, showcasing the need for dedicated insulin production in the country, Sanofi explained.
Sanofi has operated in China for more than four decades and has been gradually increasing its manufacturing investments in the country over that same span.
“Our increasingly strong manufacturing capabilities, collaborative R&D capabilities, speed of introducing innovative drugs, and iterative capabilities of patient solutions in China continue to provide high-quality services for the health needs of Chinese patients and the general public,” Paul Hudson, Sanofi’s CEO, said in a statement.
The site will leverage automated production, digitally integrated management and sustainable environmental protection standards, Hudson added.
Sanofi’s newly unveiled insulin project comes at a time when many other large drugmakers have faced challenges in China.
Perhaps most notably, certain AstraZeneca executives in the country have been swept up in an escalating investigation which tanked the British pharma’s stock price last month. Nevertheless, AZ chief executive Pascal Soriot recently defended his company’s oversight in China on a conference call with investors, noting that AZ’s China operations have “strong [compliance] policies in place.”
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. are said to be cutting jobs in China after facing their own headwinds in the country.
Still, it hasn’t been all bad for western drugmakers in China of late.
In early November, Pfizer’s China president, Jean-Christophe Pointeau, told reporters at an event in Shanghai that the company plans to invest $1 billion in the country from 2025 to 2030 to help speed up the entry of new drugs, improve diagnostics and support local biotechs through collaborations.
More recently, Pfizer was enlisted by Shanghai’s Zai Lab to help market the antibacterial drug Xacduro in mainland China in a deal slated to run through 2028.
Xacduro first won approval in the U.S. to treat hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia in early 2023. The drug subsequently picked up a nod in the same indication in China this past May.