Merrion Pharmaceuticals buys Citywest R&D facility

MERRION Pharmaceuticals, the Dublin-based drug-maker, has benefited from falling values in the commercial property market by expanding its manufacturing facilities here in a bid to accelerate the development of its product pipeline.

Merrion has acquired for a €3.75 million a 26,684sq ft facility in Citywest, Co Dublin which will act as an R&D base for the company.

The Citywest facility had been previously valued at around €20m only a few years ago, although that valuation had slipped to €7m last year. Merrion’s management said that the expansion was vital, as opportunities arising for the company are likely to mean that its existing base is not big enough on its own to move the business forward at an acceptable speed.

Although it also has operations in the US, the bulk of Merrion’s operations are based at Trinity College in Dublin. That facility, which will continue operating, houses the company’s head office, main manufacturing base and R&D facilities. The Citywest development will increase Merrion’s capacity by roughly 10-fold.

Commenting on the expansion, Merrion chief executive, John Lynch said: “We are delighted with the purchase. We’ve been expanding rapidly over the last 12 months and it became apparent that we needed additional R&D space to undertake our existing workload and to potentially increase the number of products in development.

“We’ve been extremely fortunate to find a facility which met our needs, at a very competitive price and is configured exactly for our requirements.”

The new deal will see Merrion pay €900,000 in cash for the facility and €2.85m in secured borrowings (€2.1m of which will be as a 15-year mortgage).

The new facility will allow for the faster expansion of Merrion’s strategic partnership with Danish company Novo Nordisk and the accelerated development of the Dublin firm’s own Phase One drug pipeline.