Sanofi has completed construction of a so-called modular facility in France that the company said can quickly switch manufacturing processes that would traditionally take months to complete.
The building’s 34 mini-facilities with “interconnected equipment” means that the facility can be re-configured within a few weeks, instead of taking months or even years to do so, Sanofi said. This could then allow the company to potentially quickly upscale production of up to four different vaccines or biologics at the same time.
Paul HudsonThe €500 million ($552 million) building, dubbed Modulus, is in Neuville-sur-Saône in Lyon, France. The 24,000-square-meter facility will be operational at the end of 2025 and will create 200 new jobs, according to a Tuesday release.
“It is not just a new, more modern, ecological and connected factory, but a revolution in the way we will manufacture vaccines and biomedicines in the coming decades,” CEO Paul Hudson said in the release written in French.
Sanofi announced construction in 2020, along with the build of a €120 million vaccine R&D center in Marcy-l’Étoile, which is also in Lyon.
The French pharma has been busy boosting its footprint. It recently expanded its hub in Hyderabad, India. The company also recently invested €1.3 billion into a new insulin production site in Frankfurt.