Two months after Sanofi completed construction in France of its innovative Modulus vaccine and biologics plant—which can be reconfigured within days during a pandemic—the drugmaker said it has opened a similar facility in Singapore.
Located in the Tuas Biomedical Park and erected with an investment of 558 million euros ($590 million), It becomes the first modular manufacturing facility on the island nation, Sanofi said.
Sanofi kicked off construction of the site in April of 2022, then calling it and its sister plant in France Evolutive Vaccine Facilities (EVFs).
“More than just a factory, (Modulus) redefines healthcare delivery with flexibility and speed, enabling us to meet the changing needs of the pipeline across multiple modalities, as well as respond with urgency to future public health challenges," Brendan O’Callaghan, Sanofi’s VP of manufacturing and supply, said in a release.
The Singapore site will be operational by the middle of 2026 and will employ a staff of 200, including “bioprocess engineers, data analysts, quality control experts, as well as experts in artificial intelligence and bioinformatics,” O’Callaghan said this morning during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. He added that the company already employs 600 in Singapore.
The company has said the facilities can produce up to four vaccines or biologics simultaneously and can go from producing one vaccine to another in less than two weeks. The building is capable of housing 34 production modules, each equipped with interconnected and modular equipment to configure production lines, depending on the needs of the moment.
Singapore has placed much emphasis on attracting biopharma manufacturing. Earlier this year, AstraZeneca said it was building a $1.5 billion antibody-drug conjugate factory there, due for completion in 2029. In January, AbbVie broke ground on a $223 million expansion of its production facility in Singapore to help bolster global biologics capacity.
In March, Novartis started work on its own $256 million Singapore expansion, which will primarily support manufacturing of antibody drugs. In 2022, Merck opened a packaging facility and broke ground on a plant that will produce inhalers and is set for completion in 2026.
“Modulus will further strengthen our collaboration in pandemic preparedness and response,” Singapore’s minister of heath Ong Ye Kung said at the ceremony. “There is a swell of pandemic nationalism after COVID-19, as many countries now justifiably aspire to develop and produce their own national vaccines.”