Roche opens US$500m manufacturing plant in Singapore

Roche opens US$500m manufacturing facility in Singapore
By Yasmine Yahya, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : Swiss healthcare firm Roche has officially opened a US$500 million biologics manufacturing plant in Singapore.

The facility in Tuas comprises two manufacturing plants - one will produce two cancer drugs, Avastin and Herceptin, while the other will manufacture a medicine called Lucentis which treats patients with age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease.

The firm has no plans to expand the facility, as its global operations have sufficient capacity for its current and future manufacturing pipeline. But capacity is expected to be ramped up by improving manufacturing yields and productivity.

"This plant was designed for the E.coli or bacterial fermentation platform, but we can produce products like Nutropin, a growth hormone, here. And we also have other products in our pipeline that could potentially be produced here in the future," said Jim Miller, GM of Technical Operations at Roche, Singapore.

Roche has six biologics manufacturing sites around the world, with the one in Singapore being its first in the region. Miller said one reason why the firm decided to enter the Asian market was because of its growing sales potential.

"The market is changing. Where the US and Europe have been the predominant market leaders in the past for the types of medicines that we make, we really see that one of largest populations for cancer will be in Asia. So being here in Singapore is a very important part of the whole plan to supply, hopefully, the world someday with medicines," said Miller.

The Singapore facility currently employs 330 workers, and this figure is expected to rise to over 400 by the end of next year.

- CNA /ls

- wong chee tat :)