According to a report released yesterday by the IDA, the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland has been boosted by a stream of significant new investments in recent years, particularly in the biopharmaceutical space.
Nine of the world’s top 10 pharma companies have operations here; Ireland is the eighth largest producer and the fifth largest exporter of pharmaceuticals globally; 120 pharmaceutical companies have bases in this country; and 33 pharma and biopharma plants are FDA approved.
Pharma-chemical products make up half the total goods exported from Ireland making the sector critical from an external trade perspective. In 2013, the value of exports was just over €50bn, down by 8pc or around €5bn from the previous year. This followed a fall of under 2pc in 2012 over 2011 as the impacts of the cliff started to take hold – Ireland manufactures in part or full six of the top ten blockbusters drugs that have or will come off patent between 2011 and 2016.
According to Matt Moran, director of Ibec group PharmaChemical Ireland, which represents the industry in Ireland, an estimated €3bn in capital expenditure is currently going into the ground in the sector here.
The current series of investments is expected to result in the creation of more than 2,000 new direct jobs in the sector. At the moment, pharma in Ireland employs around 25,000 people directly and another 25,000 indirectly.
It was announced in November 2014 that Bristol-Myers Squibb is planning to build a new state-of-the-art, large-scale biologics manufacturing facility at its Cruiserath site in Co Dublin that will produce multiple therapies for the company’s growing biologics portfolio. The 30,000-sq metre project will house six 15,000-litre bioreactors and a purification area as well as office and laboratory space. The plant will be built on the grounds of the company’s existing bulk pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. Bristol-Myers Squibb says it expects the investment to be around US$900m (€734m).
Other high profile and high value investments in this space include Eli Lilly’s €330m spend on a second biomanufacturing facility at its Kinsale campus.
Growing the biopharma manufacturing base is also hugely important for the future of the industry. Director of Ibec group PharmaChemical Ireland Matt Moran said, "It is vital that Ireland is a major player in this arena. The recent explosion of investment in this field in this country has pushed Ireland to second place behind the USA as a centre for the manufacture and development of such products."
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