AstraZeneca is spending $135 million to expand a biologics facility in Sweden due to an increase in demand for its pre-filled syringe drug products, a company spokesperson told Endpoints News.
The 2,700 square-meter expansion to the company’s biologics plant, dubbed the Sweden Biomanufacturing Center, will include new equipment for filling biologics, such as vaccines, into pre-filled syringes. Production is expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2027, according to a Monday press release.
Around 100 new jobs will also be added, the spokesperson said. The facility is located at AstraZeneca’s site in Södertälje, near Stockholm, where the company has five production sites which employ around 4,000 people, the spokesperson added.
While citing an uptick in demand for AstraZeneca’s pre-filled syringes, the spokesperson also said there was a need for more internal manufacturing capacity. And AstraZeneca is building elsewhere too, including a new $1.5 billion ADC factory in Singapore, and a $388 million investment into its site in Dunkirk, France.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca had its budget cut by the UK government for a facility expansion at its site in Speke, Liverpool. The UK had originally promised to invest £65 million ($86 million) to aid the expansion, but reduced that figure to £40 million ($53 million), the Financial Times first reported.
“We are committed to making the UK one of the best places in the world to develop and manufacture new and innovative medicines, and we are in positive discussions with AstraZeneca to support the delivery of this planned investment in Speke,” a spokesperson for the UK’s Treasury told Endpoints.