Johnson & Johnson builds the emerging country focused innovation center in Xi'an

Johnson & Johnson (USA) is stepping up its efforts to build a Xi’an-based innovation center aimed at markets in China and other emerging countries.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Xi’an-Janssen, the Chinese subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (the biggest pharmaceutical and customer care product developer and manufacturer in the world) and Xi’an High-tech Zone (XHTZ) on November 14, 2013, Johnson & Johnson will construct its globally biggest supply chain manufacture base in XHTZ.

Boasting a construction area of 267,000 square meters, the planned innovation center will serve as the biggest single building in bio-pharmaceutical sector in China in terms of construction area. To be built in three phases, the project will kick off construction in April 2014 and be put into operation in 2016. Upon completion, the innovation center will comprise a brand-new supply chain base for the health care giant, and its biggest vaccine manufacture base in Asia, and the manufacture base for its imported bio-pharmaceuticals into China. It is expected about 5 billion pieces of tablets will be produced on a yearly basis in the innovation center with annual sales income approaching approximately RMB10 billion.

With Xi’an-Janssen, its first joint venture built in China as early as 1985, Johnson & Johnson is remembered as one of the earliest world’s top 500 enterprises setting foot in China.

Thad Huston, President of Xian Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd, noted that the scheduled Xi’an manufacture center, which will be built into the biggest manufacture base for the same category of products of the company, would function as an innovation center targeted at markets in China and other emerging countries, as well as a platform to introduce the most cutting-edge pharmaceutical know-how into China.

The ambition of Johnson & Johnson draws resonance from XHTZ, which is eager to foster a bio-pharmaceutical cluster with the driving force brought by Johnson & Johnson. Zhao Hongzhuan, Member of the CPC Standing Committee of Xi’an Municipality and Party Secretary of XHTZ, believed that the settlement of Johnson & Johnson’s manufacture base in Xi’an would attract more multinational corporations and R&D facilities in pharmaceutical circle to follow its suit and exert far-reaching influence on enhancing Xi’an bio-pharmaceutical innovation prowess and accelerating the formation of bio-pharmaceutical cluster in Xi’an.

It is known that, along with the settlement of Johnson & Johnson’s ambitious project, XHTZ deems it as an opportune time to have a bio-pharmaceutical industrial park built inside its territory. It is expected that the output value of bio-pharmaceutical sector in XHTZ will exceed 60 billion yuan by 2015. The bio-pharmaceutical industrial park in XHTZ will be home to bio-pharmaceuticals manufacture base, chemical medicine and new preparation manufacture base, traditional Chinese medicine modernization base, high-end medical device base, bio-pharmaceutical service center and specialized health care industry center, and finally grow into a well-known bio-pharmaceutical industrial park with distinctive characteristics, key areas for development, as well as technology-enabled strong competitive edge.