Singapore: Taiwan based SHL Group, a designer, developer and manufacturer of advanced drug delivery devices, has plans to invest USD40 million in Taiwan and has signed a second Letter of Intent (LOI) with the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs.

This is a follow-up investment to the initial LOI signed in 2008 for a USD100 million investment over five years, which was fulfilled within just four years. SHL now has over 2,500 employees globally, with 2,000 in Taiwan.

To ensure the company can provide a suite of high-quality, scalable manufacturing services to the rapidly growing drug delivery industry, SHL continues to enhance expertise and capacity in molding, material handling, assembly, tooling and automation. Production is ramping up at several facilities to further increase output for international biopharmaceutical customers. In addition, SHL is looking into expanding new services such as final assembly, packaging and labeling for customers and is expected to make additional investments in the near future.

Commenting on the company's new LOI, General Manager Mr. Frank Isaksson stated, "It is once again our honor to commit to further investments in Taiwan. Thanks to some excellent planning, we have been able to expand rapidly without any interruption to production. With the total global injectable drug delivery technologies market expected to reach an estimated USD43 billion USD by 2017, we are determined to continue our investment and expansion plans in Taiwan."

Mr. Frank Isaksson continues "Aside from expanding facilities and employing talented staff, SHL has also been investing heavily in high quality molding machines and other equipment for key capabilities such as tooling, molding, assembly, metrology and automation. SHL wants to ensure additional capacity will always be available in order to adapt to increasing customer demands. When working with SHL, the drug company can feel 100 percent assured that we have the capacity to always deliver on time."