With BeiGene opening its first manufacturing facility outside of China, CEO John Oyler told Endpoints News that it has more potential plans expand its production footprint elsewhere.
John OylerThe oncology-focused company is looking to possibly build its presence in Europe where it is growing “rapidly,” as well as in Latin America, Korea and Japan, Oyler said. BeiGene already has offices in these locations. It is waiting for local product approvals so it can then build its manufacturing presence, he said.
Having internal manufacturing capacity for biologics production is “more strategic” for BeiGene, Oyler said. According to its website, the company has a pipeline of 21 clinical-stage candidates and seven preclinical assets.
When asked about the Biosecure Act, Oyler said BeiGene has always focused on diversifying its manufacturing and supply chains. “Being able to be closer to your patients and having a distributed manufacturing network can be helpful. You don’t want to be all concentrated in one place. You want to spread things out,” he added.
On Tuesday, BeiGene opened its new manufacturing facility in Hopewell, NJ. It is co-located with a clinical-stage R&D center at the Princeton West Innovation Campus. The company has administrative headquarters in Basel, Switzerland; Beijing, China; and Cambridge, MA.
The company has two small molecule manufacturing sites in China located in Beijing and Suzhou as well as one large molecule biologics production facility in Guangzhou. BeiGene is investing $74 million to construct a fourth facility in Shanghai.
When BeiGene first started, it outsourced its biologics manufacturing to a third party but ran into multiple hurdles such as having to move manufacturing to another facility that slowed down production, Oyler said. Consequently, BeiGene then started to build out its own manufacturing footprint.
“Controlling our destiny seemed a more effective way of doing that than continuing to work with third parties,” he added.
The 400,000 square-foot site in New Jersey has commercial biologics and ADC manufacturing capabilities. The site also has room to expand. “We haven’t made any firm commitments, but it’s built with infrastructure and underlying utilities and such that it can be expanded dramatically,” Oyler said.
By the end of 2025, the US site will employ hundreds of workers, according to a press release. The site cost BeiGene $800 million to build over three years.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to add further comments from Oyler.