Innovative medicine production site inaugurated in France

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Sanofi has inaugurated a new production unit in France which utilises a world-first modular concept. The site, Modulus, located in Neuville-sur-Saône (Rhône-Alpes), is supported by an investment of nearly €500 million and will produce Sanofi’s next vaccines and biologic drugs.

Modulus can adapt to manufacture up to four vaccines simultaneously. Notably, reconfiguration of the technological platform (live attenuated viral vaccines, recombinant protein or messenger RNA vaccines, as well as treatments derived from biotechnologies such as enzymes or monoclonal antibodies) takes a few days or weeks.

This is much shorter compared to the several months or years required in traditional industrial factories. Conventional sites have dedicated buildings for individual technologies or products, preventing rapid changes in production capacities, eg, integrating the arrival of a new drug or ramping up production of a vaccine in the event of a pandemic, Sanofi noted.

About Modulus

The 24,000m² Modulus building contains “the equivalent of 34 standardised mini-factories, equipped with interconnected equipment, modular according to the required technology, in order to configure the production line corresponding to the needs of the moment”, Sanofi explained.

A manufacturing revolution

Modulus is “not just a new, more modern, ecological and connected factory, but a revolution in the way we will manufacture vaccines and biomedicines in the coming decades. We have reinvented everything, from the design of the building to the way we collaborated with health authorities, to imagine a factory that will be best able to meet the health challenges of patients in France and around the world,” Sanofi’s CEO Paul Hudson shared.

Furthermore, the site will enable 200 new high value-added jobs to be created within the Neuville-sur-Saône site, Sanofi confirmed.

Inauguration of the plant follows several months after the company announced a major investment in its biologic production at the Vitry-sur-Seine site.

Sanofi anticipated that Modulus will be operational by the end of next year.