Construction of MSD Singapore’s manufacturing plant for active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) began in October 1998. The first Merck chemical manufacturing plant in the Asia Pacific region, this new facility is an advanced, flexible and multi-product operation capable of producing various active ingredients for MSD products.

By 2001, operations had commenced to meet the increasing global demand for MSD’s innovative medicines. Originally set to produce the active pharmaceutical ingredients for Singulair which competes in the asthma market, the facility has also been assigned to manufacture the active ingredient for Arcoxia, MSD’s newest treatment for arthritis.

In May 2002, the API plant successfully passed the United States Food and Drug Administration’s pre-approval site inspection. In addition, the facility achieved over 1 million operation work hours and over 12 million construction hours without a single lost-time incident.

To date, it has achieved significant performance milestones and received numerous awards, including the Gold Award conferred by the Ministry of Manpower in 2002 and 2003, and the prestigious Merck Chairman’s Award for Excellent SHE performance.

Features of the API Facility

Capable of short campaign turnaround time, the facility is capable of producing chemical intermediates and final active pharmaceutical ingredients for several MSD active pharmaceutical ingredients. All the operations in the plant are monitored by a Distributed Control System, or DCS.

Materials manufactured at the chemical site are shipped to international MSD sites for formulation into final product forms and packaged for end distribution.

With control of key process parameters and observation of standard operating procedure, products manufactured at the facility meet precise quality specifications.