(Yicai) July 24 -- BeOne Medicines, the oncology business previously known as BeiGene, said it will invest an additional USD300 million to expand its flagship manufacturing and clinical research center in the United States, adding new production capacity for small molecule drugs.

The expansion will bring total investment in the Princeton West Innovation Campus, which opened two years ago in Hopewell, New Jersey, to more than USD1 billion, Basel-based BeOne announced yesterday. New capacity will support hematologic oncology projects, as well as pipeline projects for multiple tumor types including breast cancer, gynecologic tumors, and lung cancer, it said.

To mitigate the impact of trade frictions, multinational pharmaceutical firms have announced a wave of manufacturing expansions in the US since last year. More than half of BeOne’s revenue comes from that market, with its flagship drug Brukinsa (zanubrutinib) generating the largest part of its US sales.

In the first quarter of this year, BeOne's global product revenue reached USD1.5 billion, with about USD1.1 billion attributable to Brukinsa. The drug’s US sales amounted to USD761 million.

Some Brukinsa sold in the US is produced by manufacturing partners, including Catalent. In the future, BeOne will be able to make it in the the country by itself.

BeOne’s shares [SHA: 688235] closed 0.5 percent lower at CNY271 (USD40) each in Shanghai today, while its Hong Kong-traded equity [HKG: 6160] added 2.8 percent to end at HKD199.20 (USD25.40). In pre-market trading in New York, the firm’s stock [NASDAQ: ONC] was up a little over 1 percent at USD330.24 as of 5.02 a.m. local time, after gaining 2.1 percent yesterday.

Editor: Tom Litting