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Healthcare giant Pfizer Inc opened its first large-scale $600 million manufacturing facility in Singapore in July - an investment that sets in motion encouraging longer term plans for the company's operations here.
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Celebrating 40 years of doing business in a foreign country is a great achievement. But it gets even better if that accomplishment is topped off with a significant milestone. Indeed, that's what Pfizer, the world's largest privately-funded biomedical research organisation, can lay claim to. The pharmaceutical giant, which first began sales and marketing operations here in 1964, celebrated the opening of a $600 million multi-purpose manufacturing facility on nine hectares of land at the Republic's Tuas Biomedical Park in July.
This investment makes Singapore home to Pfizer's first large-scale active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing plant in Asia. The fully automated facility is also the newest addition to Pfizer's 16 API plants around the globe and will play an integral role in the company's global manufacturing division, which operates a network of 81 manufacturing plants and 36 logistics centres worldwide.
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The Singapore facility will be a key node for the manufacture of active ingredients used in Neurontin
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RESOUNDING VOTE OF CONFIDENCE
The Singapore facility will be a key node for the manufacture of active ingredients used in Neurontin, which is indicated for adjunctive treatment of epilepsy and, in some markets, certain forms of neuropathic pain, and Lyrica, which is currently under review by regulatory agencies for adjunctive treatment of epilepsy, various forms of neuropathic pain and, in some markets, generalised anxiety disorder. "These active ingredients will be shipped to drug product formulation plants for production of tablets and capsules for distribution around the world," said Kenneth Bradley, Managing Director and Site Leader, Pfizer Asia Pacific. He also revealed that the plant's manufacturing output would support products with global sales worth "several billion US dollars".
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Pfizer executives (L-R): Kenneth Bradley, Managing Director and Site Leader, Pfizer Asia Pacific; Dr Henry A. McKinnell, Chairman of the Board and CEO, Pfizer Inc; John W. Mitchell, Senior VP, Pfizer Inc and President, Pfizer Global Manufacturing; Charles Hardwick, Senior VP, Corporate Affairs, Pfizer Inc.
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Top Pfizer executives attended the plant's opening ceremony, among them Dr. Henry A. McKinnell, Pfizer Inc's Chairman of the Board and CEO, John W. Mitchell, Senior VP of Pfizer Inc and President, Pfizer Global Manufacturing, and Dr. Terry Lambe, VP/Team Leader, Ireland - Singapore Area.
"We built this plant here because Singapore is an ideal business hub with a solid infrastructure and an advanced communications system," said Mitchell during the ceremony. "The investment climate is also decidedly probusiness." He also commended the Singapore government and the Economic Development Board for their "efforts to create and nurture an innovative environment" for the biomedical sciences industry.
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"For our kind of business, which requires a well educated, highly trained, good quality workforce, Singapore is a great place to invest."
- Dr Henry A. McKinnell, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Pfizer Inc
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"It is really good to see the Republic of Singapore take its rightful place in the world based on free markets and respect for the rule of law amongst other leading nations in global commerce, technology and, increasingly, biotechnology and medicine," added Pfizer Chairman and CEO McKinnell. "For our kind of business, which requires a well educated, highly trained, good quality workforce, Singapore is a great place to invest. The government here understands that its greatest resource, and perhaps only resource, is the integrity and skill of its people and it is willing to invest in them."
EYEING GREATER GROWTH
In Singapore, Pfizer also manages regional sales and marketing activities as well as a corporate information technology unit, which services the Asia, Africa and Middle East regions. The company also has a Phase 1 clinical research unit in the Singapore General Hospital.
Pfizer's new Tuas facility will employ more than 250 highly skilled technicians, engineers, chemists and other professional staff. "These colleagues are modern pioneers, taking up the challenge of building a business from beginning to the end," said Pfizer Asia Pacific's Bradley. "We're truly an international site and are fortunate to have colleagues from many countries including Brazil, Canada, China, England, India, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the US, including Puerto Rico...we're grateful for this diversity of culture and spirit and we're a better organisation for it."
The fully automated plant consists of a general purpose Organic Synthesis Plant (OSP) which incorporates state-of-the-art API manufacturing technologies. In addition, there are also advanced process control systems, business and IT systems and environment protection technologies in place to ensure optimal running of operations. The plant was built over three years and began manufacturing operations in April 2003. By next year, the new plant is expected to attain 70 to 80 per cent capacity utilisation. And there are already plans in the pipeline to expand the facility should more capacity be needed.
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"I'm confident that while this is our first manufacturing facility here in Singapore, it won’t be our last. This is the beginning of a long and productive relationship going forward."
- Dr McKinnell
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"This plant was actually designed with expansion in mind," confirmed Chairman and CEO McKinnell. "We have room within the existing building for additional reactors and related equipment. So our expectation is, as the business prospers and grows, with additional demand for pharmaceutical ingredients, we would be quite happy to expand here...we are looking now at some modest expansion in this facility."
"I'm confident that while this is our first manufacturing facility here in Singapore, it won't be our last," he continued. "This is the beginning of a long and productive relationship going forward."
FACING THE FUTURE
McKinnell, the 12th chairman of 155-year-old Pfizer Inc, also noted the dramatic evolution of the company in a dynamic industry which he often describes as "high risk".
"Over the past half century, Pfizer has moved from an American-focused chemical manufacturing company to an international research-based pharmaceutical business to today, the world's largest research-based healthcare company," he said. "Five years ago, we had 50,000 colleagues, today, we have 122,000 colleagues."
Last year, more than one billion prescriptions were written for Pfizer medications - which are sold in more than 150 countries around the world - helping the company achieve sales in excess of US$45 billion, up 40 per cent over 2002. Pfizer is currently in the middle of a five-year plan - which ends in 2006 - to register new medicines around the world. It is what the company calls "its 20-in-5 goal" - to submit 20 new medicines for regulatory approval during a five-year period.
"No other company has ever done that, or even come close," McKinnell declared. "We'll achieve that five-year goal, but it's only a start for many more medicines to come."
That's exactly what McKinnell is gunning for - to keep his company at the top through constant innovation. To demonstrate the unpredictability of the industry, he pointed out key examples - of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the 1980s, half are no longer around or have merged and slipped from the rankings; and in 1990, Pfizer itself wasn't even in this coveted list - it was at No. 14. However, the fact that there are no guaranteed returns on R&D investment isn't a deterrent in the giant's game plan. "If you don't have the next-generation of products, you'll end up being very unprofitable," McKinnell observed matter-of-factly.
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A chemist at work in the Pfizer Inc laboratory
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This is precisely the reason why Pfizer invests an approximate US$7.9 billion yearly and worldwide in R&D. The new generation of Pfizer medicines, McKinnell revealed, "will take their aim at the world's leading killers", which include heart disease, cancer, diabetes and AIDS. Newer therapies to treat depression, anxiety, nicotine addiction, sight loss and pain are also being developed.
Government policy is another crucial factor that McKinnell singled out in deciding the success of Pfizer's business. "Governments need to value what we do," he stressed. "Healthcare, like education, is an investment for the future. There is a need to shift from the cost of healthcare to the value of good health."
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A UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP
Despite all these numerous challenges, Pfizer remains committed to serving millions of people around the world with quality healthcare and to continue being a pacesetter for new and novel cures and treatments.
"I believe we'll see more progress in medicine in the next generation than we've seen in all the generations in human history," projected McKinnell. "That's our vision. Achieving it will take the best skills of all my colleagues and continued strong partnership with the people and governments in the areas where we operate. Pfizer's investment here reflects our confidence in Singapore and the Singapore people and this is a partnership that will not be measured in years, but decades."
For more information on Pfizer, please visit: www.pfizer.com
On EDB's Biomedical Sciences Industry, please visit: Industry Opportunities/Biomedical Sciences section of www.sedb.com
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Biomedical Sciences - Key Facts
- The biomedical sciences industry is the third largest in the manufacturing sector after Electronics and Chemicals.
- In 2003, manufacturing output grew by 15.9 per cent to reach $11.3 billion. Set to achieve the 2005 target of $12 billion in manufacturing output by 2004, one year ahead of schedule.*
- Expected output in next 10 years at $24 billion.
- Total employment - 7,500
- Value add per worker - $900,000, exceeding manufacturing sector average of $174,000 per worker.
- Pharmaceutical companies contributed $9.5 billion, or 84 per cent of this output. Six of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies have major manufacturing operations in Singapore with total fixed investments of more than $5 billion. Besides Pfizer, other companies that operate large-scale drug production plants include Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sharp & Dohme, Schering-Plough and Wyeth.
- Medical technology companies contributed $1.8 billion of manufacturing output. These companies include Applied Biosystems, Biosensors International, CIBA Vision, Fisher Scientific, Hoya Healthcare, Siemens Medical Instruments and 1800-CONTACTS. They manufacture a diverse range of products such as syringes, catheters, heart stents, hearing aids and contact lenses, as well as research instruments and scientific analytical equipment.
*Nominal Growth
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