Amgen plans 1,100 jobs for Cork

IRELAND has beaten off stiff competition from Switzerland and Singapore to secure 1,100 bio-pharma jobs in a €0.82 billion plant to be built by US firm Amgen in Carrigtwohill, County Cork.

The energised and cohesive approach of the IDA, Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Micháel Martin, the National Roads Authority and Cork County Council was among the key factors which lured Amgen, the world’s biggest biopharmaceutical company, to Ireland. The company plans to create 1,100 jobs at Carrigtwohill between now and 2010.

The IDA have called a press conference to take place today at the Hayfield Manor Hotel, Cork, at which Mr Martin will formally announce the development which will be the largest industrial investment in the Cork area for close to 20 years. Top Amgen executives will also attend.

However, Amgen have rejected IDA lands in the region and are in the process of completing the purchase of a 160 acre farm which has already been the centre of site investigations by Amgen and has previously hosted the National Ploughing Championships.

The IDA have been working on Amgen for a number of years and in October of 2004 Mr Martin visited the California company at their Thousand Oaks headquarters.

The NRA is to provide a new overpass at Carrigtwohill over the Cork/Roslare Euro-route and Cork County Council is to facilitate the expansion of local infrastructure.

“The ability of the various state and local agencies Amgen dealt with to work cohesively gave the company great confidence. That and the visit of the minister to Amgen’s HQ did a great deal to swing this deal Ireland’s way,” a source close to the deal said.

The biopharmaceutical sector is becoming a major force within the global drug industry and it is expected that close to 40% of all medical prescriptions in the next ten years will be based on biopharmaceutical drugs.

Amgen’s strategy is to discover, develop and deliver innovative human therapeutics.

A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen was one of the first companies to realise the new science’s promise by bringing safe and effective medicines from laboratory, to manufacturing plant, to patient.

Amgen therapeutics have changed medical practice, company website, www.amgen.com, claims, helping millions of people around the world in the fight against cancer, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and other serious illnesses.

“With a broad and deep pipeline of potential new medicines, Amgen remains committed to advancing science to dramatically improve people’s lives,” the company said.