GLOBAL pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is to invest €145 million on expanding its Dublin-based manufacturing facility, but is yet to decide if it will lead to any job increases.

A pharmaceutical company and one of its contractors have been fined €40,000 each at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on charges relating to their waste management practices.

Pfizer, which earlier this year announced its plans to lay off hundreds of Irish workers and sell off three of its plants here, today reported net income of $2.475bn in the second quarter of the year.

A pharmaceutical company and one of its contractors are to be sentenced at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October in relation to waste management practices.

THERE are currently three vacancies in the Dáil brought about by resignations. Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher stood down in 2009 after his election to the European Parliament. Earlier this year George Lee of Fine Gael resigned his South Dublin seat in a tizzy and Martin Cullen stepped down from his Waterford seat due to health reasons.

THE Government is confident buyers can be found for the two Pfizer plants which are scheduled to close under new consolidation plans announced by the company this week.

AS almost 800 of Ireland’s 5,000 Pfizer employees contemplate being forced on to the dole queue, the company’s head of Irish operations has warned Ireland cannot continue to be the most expensive environment in which the pharmaceutical company is operating.

THE GOVERNMENT has denied Opposition suggestions that ministers ignored clear warning signs from Pfizer top brass that they needed more Government help to save jobs here.

WHEN Pfizer began construction of its first plant in Ringaskiddy in 1969, there was a hope that the facility producing citric acid and gluconate products would be the first of many which would ultimately make Cork and Ireland a global giant in the pharmaceutical trade.

Hundreds of highly-skilled Pfizer workers made their way home in shock tonight after learning they could soon be joining the dole queue.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer today announced plans to shut down three of its Irish facilities and reduce operations at a fourth, with the loss of 785 jobs.

Workers at Pfizer will be briefed this afternoon on a restructuring plan which it is feared will include jobs losse in Ireland.

WITH the banks very much in the news some focus on other segments of this economy might give a bit more cause for optimism.

IRISH farmers and food companies received more than €1.9 billion in subsidies from the European Union last year with the biggest recipient, the Irish Dairy Board co-op, receiving almost €8 million.

Brussels: Pfizer Inc may move Wyeth’s eastern Europe headquarters from Vienna to Brussels, where it would be integrated with Pfizer’s emerging markets unit, Wirtschaftsblatt reported, citing Robin Rumler, who heads Pfizer’s Austrian unit.

New York: Pfizer business development VP William Ringo is to retire.

SOME of the country’s largest firms continued to show their charitable side this Christmas, despite the economic downturn.

CORK has the potential to have the same reputation as a producer of medicine as Switzerland does for watches.

Pfizer enjoyed net income of $2.88bn in the third quarter of the year, it has been announced.

More than 5,000 people across the Republic were working for giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer today after a multibillion-dollar takeover of Wyeth was approved.

Drugmaker Pfizer has raised its earnings forecast and said profit fell less than analysts expected.

US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has acquired an 18.4% stake in Elan as part of an overall $1.5 billion (€1.07bn) investment.

DUBLIN and Athlone- based pharmaceutical company Elan is hoping to conclude its ongoing strategic review in the near term, its chief executive said yesterday.

ELAN — which earlier this week announced tentative plans to partner with an international pharmaceutical company to boost its Alzheimer’s treatment roll-out — has won a significant US patent for one of its in-trial treatments for that condition.

SHARES in Elan — the Dublin-headquartered pharmaceutical firm — fell by nearly 5% yesterday after it announced a significant amendment to trials of its leading test treatment for Alzheimer’s disease and analysts reduced their faith in the drug making it to market.

Pharmaceuticals group Merck today announced a $41.1bn (€32.5bn) takeover of Schering-Plough in a deal creating a new global drugs giant.

PFIZER said it was too early to say what impact its merger with Wyeth would have in Ireland or if there would be any job cuts here.

ELAN has taken legal action against a US company over its alleged misuse of a drug patent currently owned by the Irish pharmaceutical firm.

THE election of a new US president will not have a devastating effect on foreign investment into Ireland, two leading US business figures have said.

UCD Business Schools are hosting a breakfast seminar entitled, FDI: What’s the forecast?

Wyeth may not exactly be bred for the National Hunt game but he made a winning start to his career over obstacles in the Witney UK Structures & Marquees Novices' Hurdle at Plumpton today.

Wyeth has teamed up with Volunteer Centres Ireland to sponsor the second annual Give It A Swirl Day, Ireland’s national day of volunteering, which takes place around the country on September 26.

THE Irish pharmaceutical company Elan yesterday refused to withdraw its drug Tysabri from the market, saying its side effects are worth the risk.

ELAN reiterated yesterday that a substantial opportunity exists, on a commercial basis, for its planned series of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease — all of which are currently at various testing stages.

ELAN CORP, Ireland’s biggest drugmaker, is looking at a number of sites in the Dublin area for a $300 million (€190m) manufacturing plant, the Sunday Times reported.

ELAN could publish Phase II trial data on its leading Alzheimer’s test treatment — currently going under the catalogue name, AAB-001 — as soon as next week.

ELAN and Wyeth have suspended a study on a vaccine targeted at a suspected cause of Alzheimer’s disease, according to the website ClinicalTrials.gov.

ELAN’s up and down year has turned positive with US drug giant, Wyeth — which partners Elan on its in-development Alzheimer’s treatments — saying drugs they are working on “may have a higher likelihood of succeeding than anybody’s”.

Four Irish companies will compete internationally at the Thistle BioScience “Rising Stars Showcase”in Edinburgh on Wednesday, February 6.

IT’S a bit like the Heineken Cup, said IDA chief executive Sean Dorgan when describing his organisation’s approach to securing investment for Ireland.

THE ISEQ Index powered ahead yesterday led by strong gains in pharmaceutical company Elan. The benchmark index of Irish shares closed 110.59 stronger at 9,778.51.

THE Irish operations of German pharmacy and drug wholesaler Celesio proved one of the highlights in the group’s performance last year.

FEWER than 190,000 people are living in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina, according to a door-to-door survey.

The Dow Jones industrial average scored its third record high close in a row today, rising modestly on better than expected retail sales and upbeat jobless claims figures.