Sanofi breaks ground on first-of-its-kind Evolutive Vaccine Facility in Asia

20 Apr 2022 3 min read

Sanofi breaks ground on first-of-its-kind Evolutive Vaccine Facility in Asia (Photo credit: Sanofi)

The Evolutive Vaccine Facility (EVF) – a “factory of the future” – brings advanced digital and modular vaccine production capabilities to the Asia region
€900 million investment over five years across two global sites, with full production by end of 2025

Sanofi broke ground on its Evolutive Vaccine Facility (EVF) in Singapore today, in the presence of Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, Heng Swee Keat, and Sanofi’s Executive Vice President, Head of Vaccines, Thomas Triomphe.

A first-of-its-kind, the EVF is a fully digitalised, modular vaccine manufacturing facility, with the ability to produce vaccines on a large scale for Asia. Leveraging Singapore’s position as a regional innovation hub for the healthcare industry, these “factories of the future” are designed to enable more agile and flexible manufacturing of multiple vaccines and biological platforms, including mRNA, enzymes and monoclonal antibodies.

Sanofi is investing €900 million over five years to create two new EVFs globally – one in Singapore and one in France. These EVFs will pave the way for future vaccine innovation across the world.

“Sanofi’s decision to locate one of its two EVFs in Singapore will strengthen our biopharmaceutical industry and more broadly, our manufacturing sector. It is testament to Singapore’s capabilities in advanced manufacturing and the biomedical sciences. Critically, the EVF in Singapore will also play a key role in ensuring future pandemic preparedness in Singapore and the region.”

Dr Beh Swan Gin

Chairman

EDB

Adaptable to current and future public health needs, Singapore’s EVF is designed around a central unit that is comprised of several fully digitised modules, which can produce up to four vaccines simultaneously, regardless of the vaccine technology used (protein, mRNA etc.). The EVF will also be able to quickly “switch” its configuration towards one vaccine process to boost supply levels and adapt quickly to evolving public health emergencies, such as during a pandemic. This helps to strengthen production capacity to meet ever-growing regional and global demands for vaccines and ultimately ensures faster access to the most innovative vaccines and treatments.

“We are embarking on a technological and industrial transformation with the EVF in Singapore, which will be the first facility of its kind in Asia. The EVF will enable us to significantly increase our production capacity, and adapt rapidly to changing demands for vaccines, particularly in the event of a pandemic. We are proud to be building our next generation manufacturing facility in Singapore, a known regional innovation hub in the healthcare industry.”

Thomas Triomphe

Executive Vice-President, Head of Vaccines

Sanofi

This new bioproduction facility will drastically reduce both resource consumption and waste production with the use of solar panels and green electricity purchase, minimising the environmental impact of the facility.

Singapore’s EVF is set for completion by the end of 2025 and represents an opportunity to develop the much-needed skills in ensuring healthcare sustainability in the region, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, bioinformatics, process innovation. As announced in 2021, the EVF is expected to create up to 200 local jobs.