THE expansion of British drugmaker GSK’s facility at Tuas has earned it the title of Singapore’s largest vaccine production site based on a cumulative investment of some S$850 million, said Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong.

Speaking as the guest of honour at the facility’s groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday (Jul 13), Gan said this comes after an additional investment of more than S$300 million.

Part of the investment included GSK transferring its next-generation process for hepatitis B vaccines to the Tuas site – an advancement which will further bolster Singapore’s position as a hub for innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry, said Gan.

This technology will grant greater flexibility to GSK’s existing manufacturing process and enable rapid large-scale vaccine production.

The vaccine will be manufactured using single-use bags, which Gan highlighted as a novel technology within the vaccine production space.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly shown the importance of preparedness in effectively responding to emergent threats,” said Gan.

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“In light of this, Singapore has been actively welcoming investments aimed at developing the entire value chain of activities related to vaccines, from clinical vaccine development to commercial vaccine manufacturing.” 

Underscoring Singapore’s longstanding partnership with GSK, the minister noted how Singapore’s whole-of-ecosystem approach to collaborating with the pharmaceutical giant has differentiated the city-state as an “attractive investment destination, enabling us to maintain our competitiveness even in the face of challenges such as rising costs”.

One such example was the establishment of the S$50 million GSK-Economic Development Board Trust fund in 2009 to train Singaporeans in green manufacturing.

More than 200 trainees were supported through this fund to carry out sustainability research locally for pharmaceutical and fine chemicals manufacturing, as well as to address existing challenges of unsustainable practices in traditional manufacturing.

Other multinational vaccine manufacturers have recently made investments in their Singapore-based facilities.

Thermo Fisher launched a new sterile drug facility in May this year.

French healthcare company Sanofi last year broke ground for a vaccine production facility in Tuas. In late 2022, an affiliate of German biotech company BioNTech acquired a manufacturing site from Novartis Singapore to set up an mRNA facility.

Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech’s plans to invest 10 billion yuan (S$2 billion) in development also included opening a research facility and its international headquarters in Singapore.