Novartis expects higher sales and profitability this year, lifted by its broad range of drugs, and minimal disruption to its supply chain from the coronavirus outbreak in China.

One of the largest industrial lettings in the Cork area in ten years has been confirmed this week.

Revenues at the main Ringaskiddy-based unit of pharma giant Novartis rose 3.5% to over €112.1m last year.

Relentless innovation can future-fit Cork’s strong biopharma hub, writes Bernard Mallee

Business leaders are confident about the prospects for growth in Cork despite the challenges facing the region.

The warning about the emotional effects of the chronic skin condition believed to affect some 83,000 people in Ireland, came at the launch of a new campaign and website.

The Novartis job losses highlight “our enormous reliance” on global companies and the need for the state to invest more in Irish businesses, the Catholic Bishop of Cork and Ross believes.

The decisions by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis to shed 320 of the 550 jobs at its Cork campus over the next three years and by Koch Industries to close its Molex manufacturing facility in Shannon, with the loss of 500 jobs, may be the tip of the manufacturing industry closures’ iceberg in Ireland.

Business Minister Heather Humphreys is under pressure to explain why she and her department were given no advance warning about significant jobs losses in Cork and Clare.

“Like all the factories down through the years, Fords,Dunlops, they’ve all done the same thing. You know, just a wipe of the pen. “It’s just not going to work. We can do it cheaper somewhere else”.”

The loss, within a matter of days, of more than 800 jobs at two US multinational companies highlights, once again, the nature of Ireland’s unbalanced economy and the urgent need to assist, promote and encourage indigenous industry.

Helen Kelleher talks to Ken Murphy of CareerWise Recruitment

Swiss pharmaceutical firms Novartis and Lonza separately deepened their push into so-called biosimilars, betting cheaper copies of name-brand drugs will make headway among cost-conscious governments.

Dr Clodagh Keohane, consultant haematologist, Mercy UniversityHospital (MUH) Cork.

Novartis shares have fallen after US regulators said a unit that developed a costly breakthrough gene therapy knew about potential manipulation of animal testing data but failed to disclose it before the treatment was approved.

The State’s pricing deal with the pharmaceutical industry ends this year, and the funding of innovation must become a priority, if patients here are to have the early access that patients elsewhere in western Europe have, says Bernard Mallee

Communications firm Edelman has promoted Emma Williams, Jennifer Hyland and David Callaghan, who have been appointed as directors on foot of significant new business wins.

US drug development firm Poseida Therapeutics - of which State-backed investor Malin owns approximately 25% - has been tipped by analysts to fetch €1bn by way of a takeover next year.

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said an independent review will be carried out into the deaths, which will be separate from the hospital's own inquiry.

Ben Hirschler For Christophe Weber, the boss of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical, securing a $62bn (€52bn) deal last week to buy drugmaker Shire at the fifth time of asking was the easy bit.

Novartis, the Swiss drugmaker which employs 1,600 people in Ireland, has agreed to acquire AveXis for $8.7bn (€7.1bn) to gain a promising drug to treat a rare disease that afflicts infants, hastening a shift towards gene therapy and precision medicines.

Nine multinationals employing 5,000 people in a Cork town say they are “deeply frustrated” that the concerns of the local community were “ignored” by planners designing a new motorway.

Residents and major industries in Ringaskiddy are united in their opposition to the proposed M28 motorway route as it will sever the Co Cork harbourside village.

Children with relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS) had an 82% lower relapse rate when treated with a drug currently only licensed for use in adults.

Healthcare solutions company Novartis Ringaskiddy has just marked a number of very significant milestones; having recently welcomed the global Novartis board of directors to the Cork campus, the company has also just unveiled its first ever Cork-born site lead.

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Here's your lunchtime news bulletin...

US regulators have approved the first gene therapy against cancer, a treatment which uses a patient's own immune cells to fight leukaemia.

An “exciting” new study has revealed a drug that could help reduce the risk of heart attacks and cut cancer deaths.

A run of disappointing drug trials at Roche has left analysts suggesting the view from its new 41-storey office building in Basel, Switzerland, has become more clouded, with little chance of management now upgrading its growth forecast next week, when it reports first-half earnings.

When her only child hits his teens in a few years, Aoife Kirwan, 29, knows she’s going to be the “uncoolest thing in the world”.

Pfizer posted basically flat first-quarter earnings, prompting suggestions the largest US drugmaker needs to do deals in order to improve its growth prospects.

The first new asthma drug for nearly 20 years could have the power to significantly reduce the severity of the condition, researchers have found.

Novartis has warned its profit may decline this year as it ramps up marketing spend on new heart failure drug Entresto following a disappointing start for the medicine.

Novartis employees in Shanghai have a new $1 billion home.

Sanofi says it has sent a letter to Medivation’s board, urging the company to engage in negotiations regarding the French drugmaker’s unsolicited $9.3bn (€8.1bn) takeover offer and threatening to go directly to shareholders if talks don’t begin.

GlaxoSmithKline reported its first increase in quarterly profit since 2013, helped by sales of its HIV medicines and a weakening sterling.

Investors were warned that the worries about global growth and the health of Europe’s banks that sent markets reeling at the start of this year have not gone away.

A turning tide of development and infrastructure investment, such as the new €200 million N28 Cork Ringaskiddy Road, and €100 million port facility enlargement, may bring a new focus, and a major tenant or two to the Ringport Business Park.