"APAC has one of the fastest drug discovery innovation speeds in the world"

U S-headquartered West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., a global leader in innovative solutions for injectable drug administration, has recently inaugurated its newly advanced manufacturing facility in Jurong, Singapore. This is part of West's commitment to invest more than $350 million globally in 2023. Alagu Subramaniam, Senior Director, Sales and Commercial Operations, Asia Pacific, West Pharmaceutical Services shares more details about this new facility in a candid chat with BioSpectrum Asia. Edited excerpts;

- Dr Manbeena Chawla [e-mail]

How will the new facility benefit Singapore’s thriving pharmaceutical and biomedical ecosystem?

The Singapore Jurong plant is now more than four decades old and has played a key role in servicing our customers and patients in their needs, both locally and regionally in the healthcare industry.

With the upgrade, West is now able to manufacture advanced, high-quality containment products for injectable drugs from start to finish in a single location, which will reduce overall lead time in production. This enables us to offer a world-class supply chain to our customers across the region and help deliver life-saving drugs, life-enhancing solutions, and revolutionary medicines to patients quickly.

The Jurong facility is the only one in Asia Pacific (APAC) under the advanced manufacturing value stream for West and is one of the five sites for West’s global high-value product (HVP) capacity expansion worldwide. With both the pharmaceutical and advanced manufacturing sectors being key to Singapore government’s ‘Manufacturing 2030’ Plan, we believe we are in a unique position to support Singapore with its manufacturing ambitions.

In the last three years, we have invested over $700 million in capital expenditures, with the majority used to expand capacity across our existing sites, including the Jurong facility. Additionally, we are investing more than $350 million globally in 2023 to ensure that our capabilities and capacity evolve in tandem with the needs of our customers.

Lastly, this investment and upgrade supports Singapore in achieving a complete supply chain manufacturing capability for future vaccine response.

Are you recruiting new talent in this facility, and under what expertise?