Novartis to build US$700m cell culture plant

Swiss pharmaceuticals group Novartis has decided to locate a biotech plant in Singapore, the company's largest manufacturing investment to date.

Construction of the US$700 million cell culture plant is expected to begin early next year to be completed by the end of 2012, Novartis said, to support the company's line of biopharmaceutical products.

The cell structure plant will be Singapore's 5^th commercial scale biologics plant to date, said Minister for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang.

The announcement was made at the opening ceremony of Novartis's new US$180 million tabletting manufacturing plant in the city-state on Monday.

"Novartis's decision to site this facility in Singapore is a significant endorsement of Singapore as a value-adding partner to world-class pharmaceutical companies," the Minister said.

The tabletting facility joins a cluster of 25 pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing facilities in the city-state, all of which produce for the global market. The Singapore Biomedical Sciences manufacturing output last year reached S$23 billion last year, a 30% growth over the previous year.