HE Mr Marc Abensour, Ambassador of France to Singapore, participated on 20 April 2022 to the groundbreaking of Sanofi’s first-of-its-kind Evolutive Vaccine Facility in Singapore attended by Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Mr Heng Swee Keat and Sanofi Executive Vice President Vaccines Mr Thomas Triomphe.
In April 2021, Sanofi had announced a $638 million investment over five years to produce innovative vaccines on a large scale for Asia and boost production capacity to meet the steadily increasing global demand for vaccines. The fully digitalized, next-generation vaccine facility is designed to enable more responsive and flexible manufacturing across multiple vaccine and biological platforms, including mRNA, while minimizing their environmental impacts.
This investment reinforces Sanofi’s commitment to driving the future of vaccines by expanding its manufacturing capabilities to ensure quality and scale while addressing the risk of future pandemics. The project is expected to create up to 200 local jobs and strengthen Singapore’s position as a regional innovation hub for the healthcare sector.
The plant which will be located in Tuas will be designed around a central unit housing several fully digitized modules that will enable the production of three to four vaccines simultaneously, compared to one in current manufacturing facilities. In addition, the plant will have the flexibility to operate multiple vaccine manufacturing technology platforms based on different cell types. This modularity and flexibility will allow the production of a specific vaccine to be prioritized in a shorter timeframe, depending on public health needs. In addition, as part of Sanofi’s environmental strategy, the site is designed to be carbon neutral and to drastically reduce resource consumption and waste generation.