Top 10 International Pharmaceutical-Biotech Capital Projects Near $4 Billion

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Reflecting on the increasingly global nature of the Pharmaceutical & Biotech Industry, companies are expanding their horizons beyond North American shores in regard to capital investment. A recent survey of all reported international capital projects found in Industrial Info Resources' Pharmaceutical Tracker has revealed that the top 10 projects in terms of total investment value (TIV) total more than $3.9 billion. These projects include both those already under construction and others in various states of active planning or engineering.

Click on the image to view the top-10 projects in terms of TIV.

Each top-10 project averages out to an impressive $390 million, which is not surprising when considering the expense of constructing today's complex manufacturing plants and research centers, where construction and equipment costs can easily approach $1,000 per square foot. Following the industry's domestic capital investment profile, vaccine and biologic manufacturing plants lead the way in terms of the type of plants being built, with seven on the list falling under this category. The other three will see the construction of a drug discovery lab, an APIs plant and an OTC facility.

Enjoying its current reign as the industry's site-selection favorite, Tuas, Singapore, lays claim to three spots on the top-10 list. Those three projects alone, which include Novartis' (NYSE:NVS ) massive $700 million biologics manufacturing plant, account for a combined TIV of $1.3 billion.

Moving extremely west, Ireland is more than holding its own, with three massive projects of its own to claim. While scaling back elsewhere across the world, industry heavyweights Pfizer (NYSE:PFE ), GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly & Company's (NYSE:LLY ) (Indianapolis, Indiana) all chose the Emerald Isle for their projects with an impressive total TIV of $1.2 billion.

The remaining projects on the top-10 list include two in Denmark and one in China. Genentech's recent acquisition of Tanox (Houston, Texas) is showing its unwavering faith in the increasingly active Chinese marketplace, with plans to build a $400 million biopharmaceutical plant in Hsin-Chu. Pfizer is also expanding in Seoul, Korea.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading marketing information services company for the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy-related markets throughout the world. For more than 24 years, IIR has provided accurate and timely intelligence through products such as plant and project information databases, focused market databases, industry forecasting, key industry contacts, industry and territorial map products, direct marketing services and applications, and daily industry news.