Winning a North American client, WuXi Biologics aims to be top global vaccine supplier

By Wang Fangqing

Wuxi Biologics’ (HK: 2269) vaccine arm WuXi Vaccines (WV) expects to become a giant global vaccine supplier with its $240 million investment in the vaccine facility in Ireland last week, said the WuXi Vaccines chairman Chris Chen at a press meeting held on November 29 in Shanghai. The facility, expected to start operation in 2022, has an annual capacity of about 40 to 60 million vials.

“The reason we promised such a big investment for this North American client is that we are confident about the growth of the global vaccine market,” Dr Chen said. He gave examples of Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) HPV vaccine Gardasil 9 and GlaxoSmithKline’s (LSE: GSK) shingles vaccine Shingrix.