Dive Brief:
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GlaxoSmithKline announced this week it will spend £275 million (about $360 million) into three existing manufacturing plants in the UK.
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The investment comes despite the recent Brexit vote, which raises potential difficulties over integrating UK facilities and products once Britain leaves the EU.
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The UK has become a major pharma hub, with manufacturing facilities distributing products worldwide.
Dive Insight:
Pharma's future prospects in the UK are still very much hazy after the Brexit vote, which will force Britain to come up with a new national pharma regulatory apparatus and negotiate new trade deals with the remaining EU states.
Because of that, the GSK investment might even be considered a stabilizing factor for the nation's biopharma business–although the UK plants also provide products used by many non-EU nations.
"It is testament to our skilled UK workforce and the country’s leading position in life sciences that we are making these investments in advanced manufacturing here," GSK CEO Andrew Witty said in a statement announcing the investment. "From their manufacture in the UK, many of these medicines will be sent to patients around the world."
The new investments will be split among three plants and will create new jobs associated with both the construction and expanded oppportunities at the sites.
The Barnard Castle plant in Durham, which currently employs 1,100 people, will receive a third of the funds to construct a new aseptic sterile facility. Meanwhile, the Montrose plant in Angus, Scotland employs roughly 450 people, and will receive 40% of the funds for a new state-of-the-art facility to produce respiratory APIs. Finally, the Ware plant in Hertfordshire employs a staff of 1,200, and will receive 26% of funds to increase increase the site's manufacturing capacity of the company's Ellipta respiratory inhaler.