Dive Brief:
- Roche will close its small-molecule manufacturing facility in Clarecastle, Ireland, with the loss of around 240 jobs, the Clare Herald reports.
- The Swiss pharma giant had announced its plans to leave the facility last November but had been hoping to sell it to another pharma company to avoid job losses. A buyer has not materialized however, so production with be shut down in phases over the next several years.
- Last November, Roche had said it would reorganize its manufacturing network due to underutilization and a lower need for high-volume production.
Dive Insight:
A local official said Roche's decision to move ahead with the closure came as a "shock," while another indicated the job loss would be a "major blow to the area," the Clare Herald writes.
Roche plans to save 1.6 billion Swiss francs in non-core restructuring costs from closing the Clarecastle plant along with sites in Spain, Italy, and the United States. The company is still seeking buyers for those three other plants, according to comments provided to FiercePharma.
When Roche announced the restructuring in November 2015, the company simultaneously announced an investment of 300 million Swiss francs into a new facility at Kaiseraugst, Switzlerand, nearer to its headquarters in Basel.
"A new generation of specialised medicines based on small molecules requires novel manufacturing technologies and will be produced in lower volumes than traditional medicines," Roche said at the time.