Merck boosts Singapore presence, opens new website, units stage for one more in $500 growth

Merck (NYSE:MRK) stated on Oct. 5 that it opened a brand new secondary packaging facility to assist manufacturing of vaccines and biologics, together with immunotherapies, and likewise broke floor for a brand new plant which is able to produce inhalers in Singapore.

The manufacturing services are elements of Merck’s as much as $500M funding over 5 years which began in 2020.

Merck started its manufacturing operations in Singapore in 1997. The services are positioned inside Merck’s current 72-acre, manufacturing hub in Tuas, Singapore.

The secondary packaging facility can have a semi-automated, vial-packaging line to supply the corporate’s blockbuster most cancers drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab), and three totally automated syringe-packaging traces to supply the HPV vaccine Gardasil 9.

The positioning had begun sterile filling technique of Keytruda final yr. The growth now contains secondary packaging, chilly storage and a high quality management laboratory, the corporate stated in an Oct. 5 press launch.

Merck added that the brand new inhaler medication facility, which can be prepared in 2026, will produce subsequent technology inhaler units for focused administration of medicines.

The funding is anticipated to create over 100 new jobs over the subsequent few years and would deliver Merck’s complete workers in Singapore to over 1,800 within the subsequent few years, the corporate famous.

Singapore has change into engaging to pharma corporations, with Sanofi’s (SNY) plan introduced in April to speculate €400M over 5 years for a vaccine manufacturing website, and BioNTech (BNTX) announcement final yr to arrange a regional headquarters for South East Asia in Singapore. GSK (GSK) already has vaccine manufacturing websites within the Asian nation.