Singapore, Mar 12, 2010: China is planning to build Asia's largest biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing organization in Beijing at an investment of $120 million.

Three companies—AutekBio, SUMA Ventures and Beijing E-Town Harvest International Capital Management, a venture capital group from Beijing Municipal Government— have come forward to build the facility.

This joint effort led by AutekBio represents strong interests from both private investment sector and government to establish world quality capability and capacity in biopharmaceutical manufacturing in China, a statement by AutekBio said.

"The newly established facility and company will provide, for the first time, manufacturing services in China fully conforming to the US FDA / EU EMEA cGMP standards, for the global biopharmaceutical needs."

The new joint venture will build up a world class R&D and manufacturing center in southern Beijing to service international biologic developments, with combined volumes of bioreactors up to 20,000 liters in multiple production lines (trains).

"I am extremely pleased with this joint investment. This will allow us to build one of the largest biologic CMOs in Asia," said Julius Li, the CEO of AutekBio. "The newly established facility and company will provide, for the first time, manufacturing services in China fully conforming to the US FDA / EU EMEA cGMP standards, for the global biopharmaceutical needs."

The CMO will come up at Beijing Yizhuang Development Zone, a national biomedical manufacturing base that is home to over 100 pharma and biotech companies.