Pfizer in News

Pfizer opens US$350 million plant in Singapore
Publication : Media Corp News Asia : July 16, 2004

Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drug maker, opened its largest ingredients manufacturing plant in Asia here and immediately announced plans to expand the 350 million US dollar facility.

The plant, built by subsidiary Pfizer Asia Pacific Ltd. over the past four years, will manufacture the active ingredients for two drugs -- Neurontin and Lyrica -- which are both used to treat epilepsy and pain. Company executives said one of the ingredients, gabapentin, will be used to make Neurontin, a medicine that has annual sales revenues of 2.6 billion dollars worldwide.

The other ingredient, pregabalin, will be used in Lyrica, which is expected to be approved by US regulators later this year and should also reach more than one billion dollars in revenues after it hits the market. "So this plant will
support multiple billions of dollars in terms of revenue," said Henry McKinnell, chairman and chief executive of the US-based company. However, Pfizer senior vice president John Mitchell said the company had no plans to make sildenafil, the main ingredient for its best-selling anti-impotency drug Viagra, at the Singapore plant. Sildenafil has been manufactured at Pfizer's plant in Ireland since Viagra was introduced in 1998, and operations there were going well, Mitchell said. The Singapore facility, located on nine hectares (22.23 acres) of reclaimed land on the western edge of the island, would be dedicated to making ingredients for anti-epilepsy drugs which are in high demand worldwide. The ingredients are currently shipped to Europe and South America, but Pfizer executives expect the
market to expand as regulators approve the sale of the medicines in other countries.

The executives said they were already considering plans to expand the Singapore plant, Pfizer's 16th ingredients manufacturing facility in the world, but gave no time frame. "This plant was actually designed with expansion in mind," McKinnell told reporters after the opening ceremonies. The decision to locate the facility in Singapore is a boost for the city-state, which has been developing its biomedicals industry in a bid to diversify its heavy dependence on electronics exports. Pfizer's sprawling compound sits next to the facilities of other global drug makers such as Wyeth and Merck Sharp and Dohme.

Mitchell said Pfizer chose to build the plant in Singapore because of the country's business-friendly environment and world-class infrastructure. "We are committed to Singapore now and in the future," he said. Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan said the biomedicals industry, of which pharmaceuticals is the biggest component, was on track to meet its output target of 12 billion Singapore dollars (7.0 billion US) this year, one year ahead of schedule. The government plans to double the output to 24 billion dollars within the next 10 years, he said.