SINGAPORE – Merck & Co. has opened a packaging facility in Singapore to support its top-selling cancer drug (Keytruda) and HPV vaccine (Gardasil), while also breaking ground on a plant to manufacture next-generation inhalers, Biopharma dive reports.
The new facilities are part of the company’s five-year investment plan in its Asia-Pacific regional headquarters in Singapore, which is worth up to US$500 million.
Meanwhile, the new inhaler medicine facility is scheduled to open in 2026 and will manufacture inhaler devices used in targeted drug administration.
Merck does not currently sell many inhaled medicines, but it is working on an inhaled drug (MK-5475, an inhaled soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator) for pulmonary arterial hypertension that is currently in a Phase 2/3 study.
This treatment is part of the company’s long-term strategy to expand its cardiovascular drug business.
Merck’s Singapore fill-finish facility now includes a vial-packaging line for cancer treatment Keytruda as well as three syringe-packaging lines for another Merck mega-blockbuster, HPV vaccine Gardasil.
Last year, the site began sterile filling of Keytruda into vials. Cold storage and a new quality control laboratory are part of the expansion.
Both factories are located within Merck’s 72-acre manufacturing campus in Tuas, Singapore. Merck has had a manufacturing presence in Singapore since 1997 and has invested US$2 billion in local manufacturing operations.
Merck’s Singapore workforce will grow by more than 100 jobs as a result of the new investment.
Additionally, Merck has set aside funds for improved information technology and initiatives to advance the company’s environmental sustainability goals, in addition to the two new facilities.
Emerging Asian biomedical manufacturing hub
Singapore has long been a regional biopharma manufacturing hub, but with the Covid-19 pandemic, Moderna, BioNTech, and Sanofi have all set up shop to make room for local manufacturing.
Hilleman Laboratories, a Merck-backed joint venture, had previously announced plans for a manufacturing and R&D facility to aid in the fight against infectious
GSK was the only company in the country with a vaccine plant prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
Sanofi, on the other hand, began construction on a US$434 million vaccine plant in April, adding to its already significant presence in the country.
Last year, BioNTech announced plans for a regional headquarters in Singapore, which will include an mRNA manufacturing facility with a capacity of several hundred million vaccine doses per year.
The move to Singapore isn’t just from the West. WuXi, GenScript, and Catalent are contract players that have expanded their existing facilities in the country.
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