Sigma-Aldrich Expands Customer-Centric Model with Investments in Singapore That Localize World-Class Capabilities to Better Support Customers in Asia

SINGAPORE, April 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL), a leading Life Science and High Technology company, today announced the opening of its Asia Pacific headquarters and state-of-the-art Cell Culture Technical Center in Singapore.  Located at Biopolis Research Park, the facility will provide customized support to meet customer needs, leveraging the Company's industry leading scientific capabilities.

"Our new Technical Center will significantly enhance our ability to support our customers in the region more quickly and effectively by providing local technical solutions that are customized to meet their needs," said Jason Apter, Vice President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific for Sigma-Aldrich. "We are partnering with biopharmaceutical companies that are looking to increase the efficiency of their R&D efforts, working with them to reduce the time-to-market, cost and risk in developing both new drugs and generic versions of existing drugs."

The facility brings existing commercial offices and production laboratories in Singapore into a single location, together with the new Cell Culture Technical Center.  The Technical Center will primarily support the customers of our SAFC^® Commercial business in biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing.

The Cell Culture Technical Center is designed to address a wide range of needs of our customers in the Asia region, ranging from development projects, product support, trouble-shooting and application issues. Initially, the Technical Center will provide:

• Cell culture media development and optimization services for customers engaged in biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing, and
• Pre-clinical media manufacturing through our imMEDIAte ADVANTAGE™ (IA) service which provides the ability to custom produce non-cGMP batches of material and subsequent modifications thereby speeding development and accelerating time-to-market.

"The development and manufacturing of biologics, whether innovative new products or generic versions of existing drugs (biosimilars), continues to be an attractive area of growth as our customers continue pushing the boundaries of science and advancing their ability to treat and cure disease," said Apter.  "The Technical Center is a state-of-the-art platform for the delivery of our market-leading technical expertise in the region and through this platform we will continue to expand our ability to support our customers as they build up research and production capacity themselves in this important region."

To further strengthen its presence in Asia Pacific and to better support customers in the biopharmaceutical industry, Sigma-Aldrich has also announced plans to construct its own cGMP distribution center in Tuas. Expected to open at the end of this year, the distribution center will enable Sigma-Aldrich to provide end-to-end services to its customers and distributors in Singapore and across South East Asia (SEA).

This will be the Company's first fully-owned distribution center in SEA and will significantly enhance its ability to provide exceptional supply chain security and service to customers in the region. Created with an 'In Asia for Asia' objective, the cGMP certified distribution center will support strategic partnerships with customers in the region, enabling them to meet the increasingly stringent regulatory requirements for biopharmaceutical manufacturing.  

Mr. Kevin Lai, Executive Director of Biomedical Sciences and Consumer Businesses of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) said, "Today, the fact that 9 of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies have a presence in Singapore across manufacturing, headquarters and R&D operations is testimony to the continued growth of our pharmaceutical industry. We welcome Sigma-Aldrich's new investment and are confident that this will further strengthen our supporting ecosystem for biopharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D."

Gilles Cottier, Executive Vice President and President of SAFC Commercial, said, "The choice of Singapore as Sigma-Aldrich's regional headquarters was an obvious one, given the country's strategic location, strong economy, political stability and world-class infrastructure." 

"Sigma-Aldrich is recognized as a leading global supplier to the biopharmaceutical industry. Our investments in Singapore play a crucial role in our strategy to better serve our regional customers and global players expanding into Asia.  The country's rapidly expanding biomedical ecosystem provides Sigma-Aldrich with access to talent and resources in an attractive and robust business environment like Singapore," said Cottier.

Cautionary Statement: The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "will significantly enhance," "will continue to expand," "will support," "strategy" or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived therefrom. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that the Technical Center or cGMP distribution center will enable the Company to achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding the Technical Center or the cGMP distribution center could be affected by, among other things, the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Sigma-Aldrich, a leading Life Science and Technology company focused on enhancing human health and safety, manufactures and distributes 296,000 chemicals, biochemicals and other essential products to more than 1.4 million customers globally in research and applied labs as well as in industrial and commercial markets. With three distinct business units - Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial - Sigma-Aldrich is committed to enabling science to improve the quality of life. The Company operates in 37 countries, has approximately 9,300 employees worldwide and had sales of $2.79 billion in 2014. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.

©2015 Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC. All rights reserved. Sigma-Aldrich, SAFC and imMEDIAte ADVANTAGE are trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Co. LLC or its affiliates, registered in the U.S. and other countries.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation