€72 million Cork Pfizer plant ‘may never enter commercial production’

PFIZER has spent $90 million (€71.7m) building a plant in Cork which may never enter commercial production.

The new plant at Loughbeg near Ringaskiddy has been built to produce a new cholesterol drug, Torcetrapib, which promotes good cholesterol and is a complementary therapy to the company’s top selling Lipitor treatment for cholesterol.

The plant has been built despite the fact that the drug has not completed clinical trials and is still nearly two years away from being commercially available.