Pfizer to create 200 jobs in expansion

Pfizer is set to create 200 new jobs with a €250 million expansion of its sterile manufacturing facility in Dublin.

The company was granted planning permission to extend the facility in Dublin’s Dún Laoghaire last week and is on the verge of completing the process of obtaining the necessary internal approvals before construction starts.

The new investment will double the number of people employed at the Dún Laoghaire facility, which has been in operation since 1972 and covers a 17-acre site. The plant is responsible for producing sterile vials that are used to store drugs for human use.

Some of the containers hold as little as 2 millilitres and are subject to complex technical and regulatory requirements. Output from the plant is used to supply Pfizer products throughout the world.

The current facility contains four so-called “clean rooms”, which range in size between 1,000 and 10,000 sq ft and provide the sterile environment required to develop the vials.

More than 7 million vials are shipped from the facility every year.

The site currently employs technical and mechanical engineers, chemical analysts, laboratory technicians and support staff.

It is one of five manufacturing sites in Ireland, which also include drug manufacturing operations at Cork’s Little Island, Loughbeg and Ringaskiddy.

The company also has a support facility based at Cork Airport’s business park and a treasury unit in Dublin. Pfizer will employ more than 2,000 people in Ireland when the new investment is complete.

Ireland was believed to be top of Pfizer’s list as a result of the company’s 30-year links with the country and the success of its operations here, which include the manufacture of Viagra, a drug used in the treatment of sexual dysfunction that is one of the company’s biggest sellers worldwide.

The Ringaskiddy plant, where the drug is manufactured, accounts for 600 of Pfizer’s Irish staff.

The news will be further good news for Ireland’s pharmaceutical sector after this newspaper revealed last month that Johnson & Johnson were eyeing Cork with a view to creating several hundred additional jobs in the city.

The company is currently spending €150 million on the Janssen-Cilag plant in Little Island and a decision on further investment is expected within weeks. Cork is believed to be on a shortlist with sites in Singapore and Puerto Rico.