The plant in Tuas Biomedical Park is part of a $320-million expansion of AbbVie’s drug manufacturing capacity.

AbbVie announced in 2014 that it planned to invest $320 million to establish manufacturing capabilities for both large- and small-molecule drug substances in Singapore. The active pharmaceutical ingredient production operations opened in September 2016. Now, in November 2017, the company has reported that its biologic manufacturing facility, located in Tuas Biomedical Park in Singapore, is open. The mammalian cell culture plant is equipped with both stainless-steel and single-use technologies and is expected to be fully operational by 2019. The company intends to produce drug substances for pipeline oncology and immunology therapies that will be marketed on a global basis.

With the addition of the two Singapore facilities, AbbVie has a total of 14 manufacturing sites around the world, including several in the United States at North Chicago and Abbott Park, Illinois; Worcester, Massachusetts; Wyandotte, Michigan; and Barceloneta and Jayuya, Puerto Rico and several in Europe, including Italy; Germany and Ireland (two in Sligo; one in Cork).