Hundreds of new jobs at plant
CHEMICAL FIRM IN MOVE TO TYNESIDE
Business Reporter HUNDREDS of jobs are to be created at a new pharmaceutical plant on Tyneside.
Accord Healthcare has opened its factory in Fawdon, Newcastle, and the company said it will create between 350 and 500 jobs.
The 22-acre site specialises in creating medication and tablets for the health industry. Accord took it over in 2015 after pharmaceutical firm Sanofi closed and relocated to France.
The reopening has allowed Accord to re-employ many of the staff who lost their jobs.
Representatives from Newcastle City Council, local business groups, and politicians attended the opening ceremony, where Accord’s executive vice president for Europe, Dr James Burt, said: “The purchase of Fawdon preserves a legacy of manufacturing in Newcastle that spreads back over 50 years. We have done something quite difficult. We took on a closed facility and we have invested in gaining regulatory approval and that’s a difficult job.
“We have invested heavily in the site. We have brought in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, we have upgraded the quality of the site so the medicines that are produced here are of a higher quality, and we have offered employment prospects back to a lot of people who were on this site previously.
“We are also investing in a laboratory to undertake discovery and development work so we can bring out the next generation of products at this site, and export them all over the world.”
Accord operates four sites across the UK and is planning to invest £60m over the next 18 months. Dr Burt added the Newcastle plant would be a “big beneficiary” of that.
The Fawdon site is being run by site manager Keith Daniels, who has returned to his home town to oversee operations. Mr Daniels explained he would be looking to hire staff in a range of roles, such as finance, health and safety, engineering, and laboratory positions.
He said: “It is great for the local area, for Fawdon and Newcastle, that we can dip into the talent that is already here and bring back jobs to the North East at a time when people are moving out of the area.”
Newcastle North MP Catherine McKinnell and Accord employee Lesley Lavin – who worked at Sanofi – unveiled a plaque.