Sanofi-aventis To Build New Vaccine-Manufacturing Plant

Sanofi-aventis announced this week that it plans to construct a new vaccine-manufacturing center in Neuville-sur-Saône, France. The plant is targeted to produce 100 million doses of a dengue-fever vaccine that is currently under development.

The EUR 350-million ($478 million) project represents the largest investment by Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines operations of sanofi-aventis. The plant is expected to be operational in 2013 and employ 200 people.

With this new plant, sanofi-aventis will have invested more than EUR 1 billion ($1.4 billion) in vaccine production since 2005, according to a company press release. Part of that investment includes a new influenza-vaccine manufacturing facility in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania. Sanofi Pasteur invested $150 million to build the 140,000-ft² facility. Last week, sanofi-aventis announced the new vaccine-manufacturing facility has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The new facility will use egg-based production to develop vaccines for seasonal and pandemic influenza. The licensure of the new facility is for producing the company’s seasonal trivalent influenza vaccine, Fluzone, influenza virus vaccine and augments the company’s current Fluzone vaccine production capacity in the US. In total, Sanofi Pasteur will have annual US capacity of approximately 150 million doses of trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine, which includes 100 million doses from the new facility when it is operating at full capacity. Production of the Fluzone vaccine for the 2009–2010 season is underway in the new facility.