Biosyngen, a Singapore-based cell therapy company, has recently opened a new manufacturing facility in Singapore, and is expected to hire around 200 individuals over the next 3-5 years. The 1,500-square-meter facility will specialize in manufacturing immunotherapy drugs, a type of cancer treatment, for patients, clinicians, and hospitals internationally.
Previously, the company had opened a similar SGD 107 million (USD 79.7 million) facility in Guangzhou, China in 2021 for research and development, manufacturing, and marketing of cell immunotherapies. However, the China facility has strict import and export regulations placed on it, meaning that the new Singapore facility will play a crucial role in serving the global market.
The new facility is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to accommodate future advancements in product design and production. For example, the facility boasts five different suites equipped with isolators to allow for complete separation between technical personnel and the surrounding environment. This allows for a sterile closed-system production, the ideal standard in the industry. The Singapore facility also uses automation to grow T-cells, a type of white blood cell used in immunotherapy, allowing scientists to program an ideal environment for these cells to multiply.
Biosyngen currently has five key projects, including two Phase 1 clinical trials concerning nose cancer and lymphoma, as well as three investigator-led trials targeting lung cancer, liver cancer and gastrointestinal cancers. The company is just one of an increasing number of Singaporean biomedical companies that are developing good manufacturing practice (GMP) capabilities as they expand their operations and progress toward clinical trials. As a whole, Singapore is working towards developing its biopharmaceutical industry and establishing itself as a hub for life sciences.
(Source: The Straits Times)
