Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Corp, which specializes in the development, production and sales of biopharmaceuticals, on Oct. 28 held a ground-breaking ceremony for its biological vaccine production base in Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, or BDA.

Tiantan Biological will invest a total of RMB 2.66 billion in the base, which is currently China's largest biological vaccine base and has the highest quality standards and the most advanced production equipment.

The base, which will cover a land area of around 160,000 sq m, is expected to be completed in November 2012.

The new base will focus on production of 17 vaccines that will include the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, the inactivated Japanese encephalitis vaccine and the smallpox vaccine.

The base will be able to produce 200 million doses of vaccine per year, generating a sales revenue of RMB 2.03 billion and a gross profit of more than RMB 700 million annually.

The bioengineering and new medicine industry, one of the four leading industries in BDA, has experienced rapid growth. Its sales revenue and profit took a 40% share of Beijing's total over the past few years. In the first nine months of this year, the total industrial output of BDA's bioengineering and new medicine sector increased 31.12% year on year despite the global economic crisis.

BDA, which is located in Beijing's e-Town (Yizhuang) area and is known as "medicine valley," in September started building a Biopharmaceutical Industrial Park that will help it complete its biomedical industrial chain, according to an earlier report from China Knowledge.