WuXi STA, a US-based contract research, development and manufacturing company and subsidiary of WuXi AppTec, opened an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility at the Taixing site in Jiangsu, China.
The facility expanded the company’s capacity, enabling the acceleration of drug development and securing a dependable supply chain for the worldwide collaborators.
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The construction of the facility officially started in April 2021 and the plant was commissioned in January 2024.
In March 2025, the facility passed its crucial US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Pre-Approval Inspection (PAI), following which the complete operationalisation was achieved in September of the same year.
The new facility is WuXi STA’s first in Taixing and WuXi AppTec’s latest and largest facility among its five API production facilities.
The Taixing site, along with the new WuXi STA Changzhou facility, expanded the company’s solid-phase peptide synthesis total reactor volume to 32,000 litres, meeting the rising worldwide need for peptide therapeutics.
Location
The new facility is located within the Taixing Economic Development Zone in Jiangsu, China.
The site supports superior local infrastructure and talent, and further enhances the company’s contract development and manufacturing organisation platform capability to address global demand.
WuXi AppTec’s peptide manufacturing facility details
Spanning a total area of 169 acres (68.4 hectares), WuXi AppTec’s Taixing site is designed to manufacture a wide range of synthetic molecules including small molecules, peptides, oligonucleotides and conjugates.
The new peptide manufacturing facility spans an area of 53 acres and includes nine plants with a total reactor volume of more than 1,000m3, including a dedicated plant for API clean rooms. It has a manufacturing capacity of more than 100t of drug substances a year.
The API plant at the site has a hydrogenation plant with seven reactors with a capacity between 200 and 8,000 litres; ten production lines; ten flow hydrogenation lines; and 22 post-processing reactors. Each production line is equipped with a filter dryer, dissolution reactor and crystallisation reactor. It is also equipped with a PSD-4 spray dryer, which expands the company’s commercial spray drying manufacturing capacity.
The company’s cumulative reactor volume dedicated to small molecule API and intermediate manufacturing exceeded 4,000m3 upon the full operationalisation.
WuXi AppTec’s Taixing manufacturing site features
The peptide plant utilises the latest digital operation systems with automated solvent delivery. It optimises production consistency, minimises human errors and lowers production cycle time.
It features WuXi TIDES, an end-to-end contract research, development and manufacturing organisation (CRDMO) platform that provides integrated services for oligonucleotides, peptides and conjugates. It includes API and drug products from discovery to commercial stages.
WuXi TIDES supported approximately 50 preclinical to commercial-stage peptide projects and manufactured more than 15t of peptide APIs and intermediates in 2023. With the expansion of capacity, WuXi TIDES supports further peptide therapeutic developments for clients worldwide.
Marketing commentary on WuXi AppTec
WuXi AppTec provides customers with a broad portfolio of research and development and manufacturing services for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries across the world. With operations across Asia, Europe and North America, it aims to advance discoveries and delivers groundbreaking treatments to patients.
The company also helps customers improve the productivity of advanced healthcare products through its cost-effective and efficient solutions. It offers end-to-end services including chemistry drug CRDMO, biology discovery, preclinical testing, clinical research services, and cell and gene therapies contract testing, development and manufacturing.
WuXi AppTec received an AA environmental, social and governance rating in 2023 from Morgan Stanley Capital International. Its open-access platform enables 6,000 customers from more than 30 countries to help those in need. The company’s total revenue reached Y45.46bn ($6.49bn) in 2025.
The launch of the new peptide manufacturing plant in Changzhou, China, and the development of the new Taixing site enhanced the company’s capability and capacity to provide innovative therapies to patients worldwide.
