Singapore maintains biomed strength with 60+ plants despite closures

Sector drew $4.4b in 2025 investments, supporting jobs and continued manufacturing expansion.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said Singapore continues to be a major global biomedical sciences manufacturing centre, even as some companies adjust their global production footprint.

In a written parliamentary reply on 7 May, he said Singapore hosts more than 60 biomedical sciences manufacturing plants, including eight of the world’s top 10 biopharmaceutical companies.

He added that the sector attracted $4.4b in investments in 2025, according to the Economic Development Board, with projects expected to create about 1,775 jobs over the next five years.

One example cited was AstraZeneca’s $1.90b (USD1.5b) antibody drug conjugate facility, which is its first end-to-end plant of that type globally.

Gan said recent plant closures reflect individual companies’ commercial decisions and not a weakening of Singapore’s competitiveness.

He also said the government will continue to support manufacturers in upgrading capabilities, including through artificial intelligence and robotics adoption.

Against this backdrop, one termination is BioNTech closing its Singapore and German sites as part of a global restructuring affecting about 1,860 staff, according to a Reuters report.

The company said production of its COVID-19 vaccine will be transferred to partner Pfizer, with the Singapore facility expected to cease operations by early 2027.

A NOTE FROM SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia