So very welcome - Pharma firm to create 500 jobs

THE news that biopharma company GE Healthcare will create up to 500 jobs through a €150m investment at the GE BioPark in Cork deserves the warmest of welcomes and must provoke a considerable degree of optimism around the region’s future. 

Yesterday’s news that software developer Mathworks is to create 50 jobs in Co Galway encourages that optimism along the western seaboard also.

GE Healthcare also intends to create an advanced manufacturing training centre at the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training in Dublin. The value of a facility like this can hardly be overstated. Not only does it give an opportunity to Irish people to advance and consolidate careers and the pharma sector’s role in our economy it sends a positive message — Ireland is a good place to do business and to create opportunities for investors and workers.