Merck & Co. (MSD) has announced the opening of two new manufacturing facilities in Singapore — part of the company’s promised $500 million investment plan started in 2020.
The new facilities are located within Merck's existing 72-acre, multi-product Tuas manufacturing hub in western Singapore.
The first is a newly commissioned secondary packaging and sterile filling facility that will increase production of immunotherapy for cancer patients in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region. Officially opened yesterday, it will house a semi-automated vial-packaging line to produce cancer immunotherapy Keytruda, as well as three fully automated syringe-packaging lines to produce the company’s HPV vaccine, Gardasil 9.
The second facility, which broke ground yesterday, will manufacture next generation inhaler devices for targeted administration of medicines, and will be ready by 2026.
According to Merck, the investment will create more than 100 jobs, bringing the company’s total headcount in Singapore to more than 1,800 over the next few years.
Singapore is home to facilities owned by eight of the world’s top 10 pharma companies and investment is ongoing. Last year, Sanofi announced a $475 million investment into its vaccine site in Singapore and Thermo Fisher announced a major expansion, part of which will involve investing in its single-use technology capabilities at its Singapore, site.
