AstraZeneca Launches $200 Million Dollar Facility in China

AstraZeneca announced today that they have upped their investment stake in China with the launch of a $200 million dollar manufacturing facility in the country.

The new plant will be in China Medical City (or, CMC), Taizhou, Jiangsu province.  The production there will be both intravenous and oral solid medicines for China according to the company.  Completion of the facility is expected to be wrapped up by the end of 2013.

AstraZeneca released the following statement regarding the investment, “AstraZeneca has been putting down deep and broad roots in China for many years, which will be further strengthened by this $200 million investment,” said Mark Mallon, President, AstraZeneca China.

“Our new manufacturing facility will complement our efforts to meet the medical needs of Chinese patients with medicines that are locally produced. In particular, it will help us to reach out to more of the estimated 900 million people in urban and rural communities who have had less access to high quality medicines.”

The company also said that due to a growing demand for its products in China that the new facility will allow them to meet that demand.

AstraZeneca has been conducting business in China since 1993 with its latest turnover of more than $1 billion dollars according to the company.

The Chinese pharmaceutical market more continues to expand and recently had sales of over $41 billion dollars in 2010 compared to less than a quarter of that figure several years before of $10 billion dollars in 2004.