Pharma firm going green with €6.5m spend

Pharmaceutical giant MSD has announced a €6.5m investment in ‘green’ technology at its Co Cork plant that will deliver huge savings, allow it to ramp up production if needed, and create jobs.

A €3.5m environment utilities building was officially opened at its Brinny site yesterday to mark World Environment Day.

The state-of-the-art facility — which includes a new waste water treatment plant — will help the Cork operation, which uses and treats about 100m litres of water a year in its sterile manufacturing process, reduce its water consumption by a massive 30m litres a year.

It will also help slash by 50% the plant’s production of waste sludge — a byproduct of the manufacturing process — from 900 tonnes per year to 450 tonnes, reducing the amount sent for incineration.

“It also allows us to ramp up the production process in case of increased production as well as making the current production process more efficient,” environmental engineer and process lead Edel Brennan said.

But the company confirmed a further €3m will be spent over the coming months on the construction of a combined heat and power plant (CHP) which will generate about 30% of the site’s electricity needs, delivering savings in the region of €500,000 a year.

Due to be completed early next year, its operational effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be equivalent to taking 633 cars and light trucks off the roads.

Donal Kelleher, the facility’s management and engineering lead at Brinny, said the overall investment is a very positive development for the company.

“This demonstrates MSD’s support of and interest in the environmental and sustainability side of the Brinny operation.

“The investment in the utilities building gives us increased assurance, helps our supply and gives us a much more efficient process.

“The investment in the CHP will demonstrate savings of around €500,000, critical to us as we become more sustainable. It’s a very competitive market.”

This latest investment follows a €28.6m investment in 2011 in two new facilities at Brinny — a drug and vaccine making plant and a testing facility — resulting in the creation of 70 jobs.

Some 420 people are employed at the site, which specialises in the fermentation, purification, and sterile filling of biotech vial and powder drug products including two of the company’s most successful treatments for hepatitis C and rheumatoid arthritis — Remicade and Peg Intron.

Drugs made on site are also used in the treatment of some forms of cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and some auto-immune diseases, as well fungal infections, pneumococcal infections, and melanoma.

The site also produces new products which are used at a global level in clinical studies.

Products produced there earn in excess of €2bn in sales per year for the company and are exported to 90 countries.

The company was formerly known as Schering-Plough, and is also known as Merck in the US and Canada.

It employs 2,300 people at its other Irish operations in Carlow, Dublin, Tipperary, and Wicklow.

MSD is gearing up for celebrations in August to mark the 30th anniversary of its Cork plant.