Dive Brief:
- Pfizer’s planned expansion at its Grange Castle manufacturing facility in Clondalkin, Ireland could add up to 350 jobs, reports The Irish Times.
- Earlier this month, Pfizer confirmed the company intends to file a planning application with the South Dublin County Council for the expansion, which would add nearly 35,000 square feet to the former Wyeth site.
- Pfizer has invested heavily in its manufacturing capabilities in Ireland, pouring $330 million into the Grange Castle and nearby Ringaskiddy facilities over in recent years.
Dive Insight:
Already one of the largest biotechnology production facilities in the world, the Grange Castle site produces Pfizer’s anti-inflammatory drug Enbrel along with the top-selling pneumococcal vaccine Prevenar. (Pfizer shares rights to Enbrel with Amgen, which sells the drug in the U.S.)
Citing an Environmental Impact Study, the Irish Times reported the expansion would allow Pfizer to ramp up manufacturing capacity for Enbrel by 50% when the new building is fully up and running.
Construction will take approximately two years once it begins, the documents said.
Originally opened in 2005, Pfizer expanded the development facility at Grange Castle in 2007. Current facilities cover over one million square feet on 90 acres. Overall, Pfizer has invested nearly $2 billion in Grange Castle facilities.
That investment is commensurate with Pfizer’s long-standing investment and presence in Ireland, which dates back to 1969.
Manufacturing supply chains for pharmaceutical companies have been seeing a new round of investment and dislocation the world over. A number of firms, including Eli Lilly, Shire, and Merck have announced new investments in Ireland-based facilities, many focusing on biologic drugs.
Others, such as Roche, are shutting down older plants in their manufacturing network to centralize and upgrade production. Roche has announced closures of plants in Spain and Ireland.
At the same time, the emergence and rapid growth of Asian markets, particularly China, has lured Big Pharma companies to invest more heavily in R&D there.
Pfizer plans to invest $350 million in a new biotechnology hub in China, its first such center in China. The facility will focus on the production of biosimilar drugs for the Chinese market. And Novartis, already ahead of the game, recently opened a major R&D facility in Shanghai, which it had announced in 2009.