GSK downsizes Irish OTC plant
pharmafile | July 18, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â GSK, Ireland, pharma manufacturing newsÂ
GlaxoSmithKline is cutting around 130 jobs at a facility in Waterford, Ireland, over the next three years as part of a re-organisation of its manufacturing network.
The Dungarvan facility currently employs around 700 staff and focuses on the manufacture of some of GSK’s leading over-the-counter and consumer healthcare brands. Some key lines made at Waterford, including the Solpadeine range of painkiller products, were sold off by the company earlier this year, while production of others has been shifted elsewhere.
Trade union UNITE has started a 30-day consultation process to negotiate redundancy terms, avoid any compulsory job terminations and try to safeguard the long-term future of the plant. GSK is the biggest employer in the town.
Waterford is not the only plant to be affected by the product sell-off, which altogether included brands with sales of around £500 million a year.
Two other OTC production units in Tennessee and South Carolina, USA, were put up for sale in April as a result of the divestment, which GSK said at the time was due to a lack of critical mass in some product categories. Other brands divested included weight-loss product Alli (orlistat) and gastrointestinal product Zantac (ranitidine).
Local news reports indicate that 48 jobs have been lost as a result of the transfer of one product’s manufacturing to Spain, while another 80 will go as part of a more general cost-cutting drive at the plant.
Dungarvan supplies OTC products to around 70 countries around the world, and between 2007 and 2009 benefitted from around 60 million euros in funding to boost capacity. An additional 30 million-euro investment programme was unveiled in 2008.
Scottish facility unscathed
Meanwhile, GSK has stressed to The Courier newspaper that 280 employees at a plant in Montrose in Scotland are not in danger of losing their jobs, despite rumours circulating to the contrary. The Angus facility will not be affected by the restructuring drive, and remains in the running for a £500 million investment programme for a new biopharmaceuticals production facility.
Phil Taylor
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