AbbVie to create new Singaporean manufacturing site

AbbVie has announced plans to create a new production site in Singapore for use in the manufacturing of small molecules and biologics active drug substances.

The company will spend $320 million (195.85 million pounds) on the facility, which will represent AbbVie's first manufacturing location in Asia. It will provide production capacity for emerging compounds within AbbVie's oncology and immunology pipeline to serve global markets.

Currently, the firm employs 120 members of staff in the south-east Asian nation, but the new investment will increase this number by more than 250. It is expected that the facility will become operational in 2019.

This will aid the creation of new therapies for the treatment of conditions related to immunology, liver disease, oncology, neuroscience and kidney disease.

Dr Azita Saleki-Gerhardt, senior vice-president of operations at AbbVie, said: "Our presence in Singapore will help assure geographic balance and continuity of product supply, as well as increased capacity to deliver on our growing biologics and small molecule product pipeline."

During 2013, AbbVie's first year as an independent business, the company generated revenues of $18.79 billion, up by 2.2 percent on a reported year-on-year basis.