Our future production site
For over 15 years we have been supplying products such as our reusable ServoPen and YpsoPen and, more recently, our disposable UnoPen to China. We have also had an office in China for seven years. Our employees support our business with local pharmaceutical customers. We are currently evaluating possible production sites in order to be able to produce locally in the future and supply the Chinese market directly.
China has the highest number of people suffering from diabetes in the world. Moreover, the number of Chinese people suffering from this chronic disease is steadily increasing. Forecasts indicate that 174 million people in China will suffer from diabetes by 2045.
Our intentions in China
China is experiencing continued economic growth. In 2021, the Asian country grew by 8.1%. For 2022, economists predict growth of 5%. Based on this growth, the government is expanding access to reimbursable medical care and thus increasing the market volume for medicines and medical devices. This makes China an attractive market with high volumes. We will establish our own production in China to better serve this relevant market. A local production site and the shorter trade routes that go with it allow us to respond more flexibly to local customer needs and to act more sustainably.
For production in China, we are investing in state-of-the-art, fully automated production lines from Europe. The heart of the production, the injection moulds for the manufacture of the pen components, still comes from the headquarters in Burgdorf. The entire production set-up will take place under expert supervision from Switzerland. While we are setting up a new production site in China, research and development will remain firmly anchored in Switzerland.
Production on site
The Chinese market is growing rapidly and the number of our customer projects is increasing steadily. According to our forecasts, we expect a strong increase in the volume of disposable pens such as the UnoPen in the country over the next few years. But we have also been able to win the first YpsoMate projects for the administration of pre-filled syringes. In addition to the disposable UnoPen, we can package our reusable YpsoPen, which is already produced in China today, at our own site in China, which is much faster and more sustainable. This saves us time and costs for logistics and shipping.
