Chinese pharma firm to start build early next year

Construction on the biggest bio-pharma manufacturing facility to be built in Ireland will get under way in Dundalk early next year, the Argus has learned.

Chinese pharmaceutical firm WuXi Biologics are set to start work on a purpose built facility at the IDA’s 26 hectare site at Mullagharlin in the first few months of 2019.

An estimated 700 construction jobs are expected to be created during the building process.

A spokeswoman for the IDA confirmed that a number of ‘enabling tasks such as permits, land surveys etc. need to be completed before construction can start’ at the site.

Recruitment of the 400 jobs to be created by the company over the next five years will also begin next year. A number of key positions are expected to be filled even before then.

News emerged just a month ago of the company’s decision to locate their first manufacturing facility outside of China in Dundalk, in what was seen as a huge coup for the town.

Making the announcement, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar described the move as ‘ the start of something special.’

‘We will see the ‘Factory of the Future,’ right here in Dundalk. It’s the first sizable Greenfield project from China in the pharma sector and I am delighted to see it located here in Dundalk. It’s also the latest in a number of investments in this town which has become a hub for a range of sectors, mainly in the new knowledge based and pharmaceutical sectors.’

WuXi Biologics are a ‘global open-access biologics technology platform company’, are investing €325 million and creating 400 new jobs over five years to establish the new biologics drug substance manufacturing facility.

Headquartered in Wuxi City, China, they are a leading name in the development and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals.

The IDA confirmed: ‘WuXi Biologics has pioneered deploying multiple single-use bioreactors for commercial biomanufacturing and is also designed to be able to run continuous bioprocessing, a next generation manufacturing technology to be first implemented globally in this campus.

The company will also install the world’s ‘ largest facility using single use bio- reactors’ at their new Dundalk base.