Cork takes brunt of job losses after 40 years of growth

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.

The omens were good when, as early as 1972, a further production plant was already constructed at Ringaskiddy to produce bulk pharmaceutical products.

By 1994, investment had already topped €1bn. Two years later the company began developing Lipitor, the cholesterol drug which would earn the company €10 billion per annum.

But it was its creation of Viagra, discovered accidentally during heart test trials, which would put the company’s Irish operation, and Ringaskiddy in particular, on the global pharmaceutical map as well as the front pages of the likes of Time magazine.

By 2000, Pfizer was booming and it celebrated by acquiring Warner-Lambert, a merger which brought together the two fastest-growing companies in the pharmaceutical industry and added to Pfizer’s global strengths and rich heritage. A further union with Pharmacia Corporation three years later added to its strength.

In the 40 years since the company first set up here, it has invested a further €5.5bn in developing the 10 locations which currently employ a 5,000 workforce. However, amid all the success, there have been troubled times for the pharmaceutical giant.

In particular, 2006 was a very bad year.

First it shocked the industry with its decision to shut down all research into Torcetrapib, the drug groomed to replace Lipitor. As a result 11% was wiped off the company’s value in one bad day for the firm on Wall Street. Then other pharma companies launched lawsuits to challenge patents on Pfizer products in advance of their expiry dates – including Lipitor.

It is that drug which has now accounted for the loss of the Loughbeg plant which manufactures it in Cork. The Lipitor patent ends in 2011 and the company has accepted that at some point it will have to start competing with generic competition.

But ultimately the decision last October to complete a $68 billion (€45.5bn) takeover of Wyeth has lead to the situation in which 800 employees now find themselves wondering if they will have a job with the company in the years to come.

At the time of the Wyeth deal, the company’s head of Irish operations Paul Duffy said the merger would create a firm “poised to become a leading biopharmaceutical company in the new era”.

However, it was blatantly obvious that there was a duplication of services offered by the plants the two companies had previously owned separately around the world.

The company wasted no time in launching a global review.

Which plants offered the best value for money, which would take more capital to keep operating and which offered the best flexibility to diversify as new products were developed?

In a cruel twist of fate it is Cork, the place where Ireland’s Pfizer pharmaceutical odyssey began 40 years ago, which at 300, is now faced with losing the biggest number of staff.