Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (IW 500/95)announced last week that it is expanding its global cell culture and bioprocessing capabilities by opening a new manufacturing plant in Singapore to produce dry powder media (DPM).
DPM is a crucial cell culture raw material used to manufacture biologics, including vaccines, anti-cancer therapeutics, and others.
The facility is the first-ever cell culture DPM production site in Singapore and is designed to address the increased global requirements from biopharmaceutical companies to mitigate critical raw material supply risks.
“Asia continues to be our fastest-growing market and a central contributor to our growth,” said Greg Herrema, president of Biosciences at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a provide ofanalytical instruments, laboratory equipment, software, services, consumables and reagents.“Our new Singapore facility further strengthens our global presence, expands our manufacturing infrastructure and establishes local production capabilities to meet increased demand for biologic drug discovery and development in Asia.”
Located in Tuas, the 30,800 square foot facility will provide critical manufacturing redundancy of DPM to help ensure a secure and uninterrupted supply to biopharmaceutical customers globally, the company explained.
The facility will also serve as an additional logistics hub for DPM distribution to Asia Pacific customers.
According to a recent BCC research report, the DPM market in Asia has been estimated to grow to US$220million by 2016, representing a 20% compound annual growth rate, the highest in the world for media products.
Featuring state-of-the-art pin milling technology, the new Singapore DPM facility is a cGMP manufacturing plant — mirroring the functionality and quality systems used in the company’s DPM facility in the United States.
According to the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), Singapore’s biopharmaceutical sector contributed about S$22.8 billion in output in 2011 and more than 6,000 jobs. In particular, Singapore’s eight biologics manufacturing facilities have invested approximately S$2.4 billion, and employ more than 1,700 people.
Singapore is committed to the development of the supporting industry for biologics manufacturing, through local talent development as well as with specialised infrastructure such as cold chain logistics services,” said Thien Kwee Eng, Assistant Managing Director, Singapore EDB.
