Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL) will build a new Asia-Pacific manufacturing hub in the Wuxi-New District Park (WND), which is located northwest of Shanghai, China. In the first phase of construction, the specialty chemical company will spend $25 million for the property and to construct a non-cGMP manufacturing facility for fine chemicals. Ultimately, the WND site will produce raw materials, key intermediates and final products for pharma, hi-tech and other business lines.

Sigma-Aldrich said that the new investment was part of a plan to increase revenues from Canada, Asia-Pacific and Latin America to 25% of total revenue. In 2006, Sigma-Aldrich began building a $12 million plant in Bangalore, India to manufacture small-scale, key intermediates for medicinal chemistry.

The news about Sigma-Aldrich reiterated a theme that ran through many stories in China biotech last week. Siemens, for example, officially opened its new Shanghai medical park, which combines space for R&D, manufacturing, service, sales and marketing initiatives under a single roof (see story). The facility, located in the Shanghai International Medical Zone in the Nanhui District of Shanghai, will be the center for Siemens’ operations in China and Asia. The SIMZ is also home to the Sino-German Friendship Hospital, in which Siemens is a partner.

Medtronic (MDT), Wyeth (WYE) and Pfizer (PFE) all pledged themselves to be looking at China as a growing market, one that will produce increasing revenues for each company (see story). The comments came at a Bear Stearns investor conference. Pfizer, for one, has already committed substantial resources to building both manufacturing and R&D facilities there.

Two entities announced partnerships with China institutions to produce new drugs. The non-profit organization PATH will work with the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products to finalize and manufacture a rotovirus vaccine, using work begun at the NIH (see story). And Sanofi-Aventis (SNY) will collaborate with the Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, to understand the workings of cancer stem cells (see story). The goal is to ultimately come up with a more effective monoclonal antibody to treat leukemia.

In Chinese drug news, we noted that Chongqing Kangwei Biotechnology expects to receive approval from the SFDA in the next two weeks for its Helicobacter pylori vaccine (see story). The search for a vaccine has, until now, been unsuccessful, even though drug companies have been searching for an effective vaccine for 20 years, ever since H. pylori was identified as a cause of ulcers and gastritis. And Sinovac (SVA) has begun its Phase II trial of its prospective Asian flu vaccine (see story).

Finally, two China biotechs that are listed on US exchanges were both mentioned as being favorably priced (see story). Following their IPOs, the shares of Simcere (SCR) and Tongjitang Chinese Medicines (TCM) initially climbed higher, only to slip back because of various fears about China and the market for drugs there. According to analysts, the current prices reflect a too-negative outlook, and a more reasonable analysis would call them a bargain.


Disclosure: none.