AbbVie Invests $223 Million to Expand Singapore Manufacturing Facility Amid Strategic Push in Asia

On January 25, AbbVie announced an investment of $223 million (approximately 1.6 billion RMB) to expand its production facilities in Singapore, aiming to strengthen its manufacturing capabilities. This new investment will add 24,000 liters of biologics API capacity to AbbVie's global production network and support AbbVie’s existing products as well as emerging immunology and oncology compounds. The expansion is set to begin later in 2024, with operations expected to commence by 2026.

AbbVie's Singapore plant, located in the Tuas Biomedical Park in Singapore, is an advanced small molecule and biologics manufacturing facility serving the global market. The Singapore plant is also AbbVie's only manufacturing base in Asia.

Foreign media mentioned that, in addition to the existing biologics and small molecule production capabilities, this investment expansion is not only aimed at producing AbbVie's marketed products but also at manufacturing its immunology and oncology assets currently in clinical trials.

Over the past decade, AbbVie's blockbuster drug Humira has consistently held the top position as the "world's best-selling drug," with cumulative sales exceeding $200 billion since its launch. As the patent protection for Humira expired in 2023, AbbVie began to face the impact of biosimilars. In January 2023, Amgen's Humira biosimilar, Amjevita, entered the U.S. market.

From the expiration of the European patent in 2018 to the expiration of the U.S. patent in 2023, despite five years of preparation, AbbVie still faced the "plummet" of the patent cliff — in the first three quarters of 2023, AbbVie's total revenue was only $40.017 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 6.8%, while Humira's revenue was merely $7.559 billion, marking a year-on-year decline of 30.8%.

This also brings to mind AbbVie's multiple moves at the end of last year. First, it acquired ImmunoGen, a pioneer in ADCs, for $10.1 billion, gaining access to its approved ADC drug Elahere for FRα-positive, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC). More importantly, AbbVie obtained ImmunoGen's proprietary camptothecin ADC drug development platform, an integrated ADC toolkit encompassing target screening, antibody development, toxin libraries, and linker libraries, as well as potential pipeline projects for the treatment of various solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

A week later, AbbVie spent another $8.7 billion to acquire Cerevel, a pharmaceutical company in the neuroscience field, bringing in potential drug candidates in clinical and preclinical stages for the treatment of various diseases such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, and mood disorders.

The two large acquisitions at the end of the year not only enabled AbbVie to gain significant pipelines but also allowed it to quickly enter new core areas. The fields of autoimmune diseases, neurology, and oncology will become the three core sectors for AbbVie's future development.

On January 4, AbbVie once again moved into the CAR-T space, entering into a licensing partnership with Umoja, an early clinical-stage biotechnology company. The collaboration will utilize Umoja's proprietary VivoVec platform to develop multiple in vivo CAR-T cell therapy candidates and grant AbbVie exclusive options for Umoja’s CD19-targeted in vivo CAR-T cell therapy candidate. This partnership could be worth up to $1.44 billion.

With the continuous expansion of pipelines, investment in production and manufacturing is essential. Essentially, the expansion of AbbVie's Singapore plant this time still represents an increased effort by AbbVie to seek the next growth point after Humira’s patent expiration. From another perspective, it also reflects AbbVie's ongoing commitment to the Asian market.

Previously, Dong Lijun, Vice President of AbbVie and General Manager of AbbVie China, mentioned in an interview with the media that, based on the policy dividends brought by China's drug review and approval system reform for innovative drug development, AbbVie’s global board has full confidence in the Chinese market and aims to build the Chinese market into the largest overseas market for AbbVie outside its headquarters.

According to reports, AbbVie has included China as a participant in Phase I to Phase III clinical trials globally. It has established a research and development team of over 200 people in China, enabling global researchers to connect with the Chinese R&D team. This facilitates a timely understanding of the Chinese market and the development of specific treatment plans in certain disease areas within China, allowing for more efficient and faster simultaneous launches of global new drugs in China. Currently, AbbVie China is conducting or planning nearly 70 clinical trial projects.

According to the announcement, AbbVie has invested more than $740 million (approximately 5.3 billion RMB) over the past decade to acquire, modernize, and expand its Singapore plant. This new expansion will add new biologics production capacity to AbbVie's global manufacturing network and create over 100 new jobs in Singapore.

Since立志成为亚洲的生物医学中心, Singapore has attracted numerous top global pharmaceutical companies to establish production bases locally due to its stable business environment, excellent talent pool, and well-developed infrastructure. According to data from the Singapore Economic Development Board, "tiny" Singapore is home to more than 80 pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing plants, employing 24,000 people. Eight out of the top ten global pharmaceutical companies have set up production facilities in Singapore.

In the past 20 years, the output value of Singapore's biopharmaceutical industry has increased more than threefold. In 2022, products worth 19 billion Singapore dollars (approximately 98.8 billion Chinese yuan) were manufactured in Singapore and then exported globally.

AbbVie's newly expanded production facility is located in Tuas Biomedical Park, a key biomedical manufacturing hub in Singapore situated in the western part of the country and spanning 280 hectares. By providing high-standard infrastructure, talent, and third-party services, the park has attracted many of the world’s top biopharmaceutical companies. Multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in the park include Amgen, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck, Novartis, and Roche, producing a variety of products such as active pharmaceutical ingredients, drug products, and biologics.

MNCs Continue to Increase Investment in Singapore. In July last year, GSK announced an investment of 343 million Singapore dollars to expand its vaccine manufacturing plant in Tuas, Singapore, relocating the production base for the active pharmaceutical ingredients of the next-generation hepatitis B vaccine from Europe to Singapore. The Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry noted that, with the increased investment, GSK's cumulative investment in the Tuas vaccine manufacturing plant has reached 850 million Singapore dollars, making it the largest vaccine production base in Singapore.

The analysis pointed out that many pharmaceutical companies choose Singapore as the starting point for global business development because Singapore has a strong manufacturing base, an efficiently connected transportation and logistics network to ensure the rapid delivery of biopharmaceutical products. This advantage makes Singapore an ideal operational base that can meet the demands of both Asian and global markets.

In addition, Singapore's health and biomedical sciences sector has received S$4 billion in public sector research funding, alongside a rich talent pool and a thriving ecosystem — featuring world-class research institutions and advanced scientific facilities, offering valuable collaboration opportunities and innovation support for biopharmaceutical enterprises. Since 2014, the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) has also collaborated with the industry to develop new talent training programs. Meanwhile, Singapore has established a robust intellectual property protection framework, safeguarding companies' R&D outcomes and encouraging innovation and IP protection.

Singapore has a robust clinical trial ecosystem, with a network comprising public and private hospitals, research institutions, and Contract Research Organizations (CROs). Here, companies can partner with key opinion leaders, research institutions, emerging biotech firms, and clinical and contract research organizations to rapidly advance pipeline assets.

On a deeper level, Singapore also serves as a window to Asia.

Previously, the Singapore Economic Development Board and VCBeat jointly released the white paper "Accelerating ASEAN Market Development to Support Chinese Biomedical Enterprises in Expanding Global Markets," directing the "window" for ASEAN connectivity towards China.

Taking Everest Medicines as an example, in January 2022, Everest Medicines reached a global licensing agreement with the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC) in Singapore. Everest Medicines will obtain the global exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialize a group of 3CL protease inhibitors developed by EDDC.

In February 2022, Everest Medicines announced that the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore had approved Trodelvy® (sacituzumab govitecan) for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who have received at least two prior systemic therapies, at least one of which was for metastatic disease.