A healthy outlook for biopharmaceuticals

Interview with GSK Vaccines

The Saint-Amand-les-Eaux site is relatively recent, as it was created only a decade or so ago. It’s the fruit of a major investment by GSK, which spent €600 million on designing and building a state-of-the-art plant equipped with the latest technology and boasting industry-leading facilities for secondary vaccine production. Our production is on the rise, reaching 130 million doses in 2022, and will continue to grow over the years to come. Our Nord-based site has taken on a predominant role at Group level, as we are one of the two or three largest GSK vaccine-production sites in the world in terms of volume.

First of all, we’re rolling out a highly advanced project to build a training centre designed to upgrade our employees’ skills. After investing heavily in equipment and technology, we now want to invest in people. This is quite an original concept as it consists in recreating a production-line environment that will be similar to the real thing, but with a different purpose, since it will not be manufacturing real vaccines. This facility will enable staff to receive training and practice in a completely secure environment. This initial experience in a simulated environment will enable them to develop the right habits and the attitude required to improve their efficiency. We’re also developing other projects related to decarbonisation. The idea is to replace all our current boilers with hybrid boilers and heat pumps in order to substantially reduce our CO₂ emissions.

I feel that economic decision-makers who want to set up in a business in a given area may underestimate the extent to which the local authorities can help them, but also the demands they can make. That’s why I strongly advise them to get in touch with them, because they can provide such effective and efficient support. I’ve mentioned the local authorities, but the Hauts-de-France region has also been actively involved. I’m strongly aware of the desire here to support international companies wishing to create a site in Hauts-de-France. We’ve been fortunate enough to receive support for our project from Nord France Invest.