(Bloomberg) -- Sanofi SA will invest around 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to build a new insulin production base in Beijing, its biggest single investment in China to date and part of a broader push to boost manufacturing capacity in Asia.
The site, Sanofi’s second in the Chinese capital and fourth in the country, will focus on meeting the needs of local diabetes patients, the French drugmaker said in a WeChat statement.
Sanofi is one of the world’s top producers of insulin, and the China market for treatment of the illness is potentially huge: Some 140 million people in the mainland, nearly 12% of its population, had the illness as of 2021, according to the statement.
The plan comes as Beijing courts foreign firms to ramp up their local presence, a bid to combat a multiyear slump in international investment. Multinational drugmakers including AstraZeneca Plc and Roche Holding AG have adopted an “In China, for China” strategy to serve the growing Chinese pharmaceutical market. The industry’s dealmaking is an unusual bright spot between China and western countries, as geopolitical tensions threaten to disrupt production of drugs and vaccines.
Sanofi recently opened a $595 million vaccine manufacturing site in Singapore that can be adapted swiftly in the event of an emergency, like a pandemic. At home in France, the company has also committed to mutilbillion-euro investments to support health sovereignty.
A team of top Sanofi executives, including chairman Frédéric Oudéa and Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson, joined the contract signing ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday. The production base will be located in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.