Sanofi Aventis Strengthens Its Presence in China    

World leading drug giant Sanofi Aventis started construction of a RMB410 million medicine production factory at the Binjiang High-Tech Zone of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province on July 20th. The new factory, scheduled for completion in 2012, will replace Sanofi Aventis' existing factory in the downtown of Hangzhou, which was built in 1995 and mainly manufactures drugs for cancer and cardiovascular. New factory is designed to cover 44 775 square meters of land, will be capable of producing 160 million packages of medicine per year.
    The Hangzhou government started to construct the innovative drugs cluster - Binjiang High-Tech Zone in 2003. Now the zone is home to more than 110 drug firms.
    On July 19th, Sanofi Aventis started to construct a RMB600 million (US$90 million) insulin expansion project in Beijing. When completed in 2012, the expanded factory will have a capacity of 50 million packages per year.