Pfizer has announced that $130 million is being invested in two of its Irish manufacturing sites. $100 million is being invested in the Grange Castle site in Dublin and $30 million is being invested in the Ringaskiddy site in Cork.

The investments, which are supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland, will enable the sites to expand their capacity and begin producing more advanced, complex therapies to deal with some of the most devastating and difficult to cure diseases.

Welcoming the announcement, Barry O'Leary, IDA CEO said: "Over the last 45 years, Pfizer has continued to innovate and transform its products to cater to the changing demands of its customers.

"The Ringaskiddy site was Pfizer's first manufacturing facility in Ireland almost 45 years ago – it is fantastic to see the work at that site evolve into high-tech manufacturing. Since Pfizer first set up in Ireland in the 1970s, it has invested more than $7 billion in developing the skills, scale and capability necessary to manufacture some of its leading medicines for global export from Ireland."

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Ringaskiddy investment

The $30 million investment in Ringaskiddy is to develop specialist new capability to manufacture some of Pfizer's newest medicines in cancer and other future pipeline medicines.

This requires flexible development facilities capable of managing a wide range of processes and technology. The introduction of flow processing and innovative technologies requires not just an investment in new equipment but also an increase and deepening of R&D skills, particularly in the area of real-time analytical technologies, flow processing, new technology and scale-up.

This investment ensures the Ringaskiddy site will be in a position to be considered for on-going development work on new products, not just for commercial launch, but also for clinical products.

Grange Castle investment

The $100M investment in Grange Castle is to create additional manufacturing capacity by expanding the unit that produces protein drug substance using mammalian cell culture biotechnology.

This unit makes drug substance for Pfizer’s biologic rheumatoid arthritis treatment and a new production line will be established that will increase capacity and thereby double productivity.

This in turn will release capacity to allow new mammalian biotechnology drug substances from Pfizer’s development pipeline to be manufactured at the site. Preparation is underway to allow construction to commence with approximately 140 construction jobs over the next year with a peak of 250 jobs. The facility will be operational in 2015, when the first process validation batches will be made.

(CD)