Singapore: North Chicago based pharmaceutical company AbbVie has announced in a statement that it will be spending $320 million to establish its first manufacturing facility in Asia.

The facility to be set up in Singapore will produce various treatments for oncology and immunology. The company also added in its statement that the manufacturing plant will become fully operational by 2019 and would employ 250 new workers.

It further added that the products manufactured at the plant will serve markets globally. The drug maker has research and development operations in Tokyo and Shanghai, as well as 120 employees in Singapore who support commercial operations.

"As Asia's fastest growing bio-cluster, Singapore is an ideal location to expand our manufacturing network while maintaining rigorous standards of quality and delivery for the patients we serve around the world," AbbVie's senior vice president of operations, Azita Saleki-Gerhardt said in a statement.