GSK expands Montrose API plant with £25m investment
pharmafile | November 25, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | GSK, Scotland, montrose
GlaxoSmithKline is planning to invest £25 million ($40m) at a facility in Scotland that will take on production of ingredients for some of its newest products.
The latest round of investment comes after GSK pledged to spend £100 million to increase capacity at Montrose and another production unit in Irvine last year, which in turn is part of a major investment programme in the UK unveiled by the company in 2010 in return for government stimulus packages for R&D.
The investment will create 25 new jobs for process technicians, engineers and chemists and bring GSK’s total headcount in Scotland to more than 750 workers. Another 50 contractors will be employed during construction of the new capacity.
The Scottish government said: “GSK is investing in new state of the art facilities and equipment to bring production of the ingredients for four new pharmaceutical products to Montrose,” adding that in recent years the company invested approximately £40 million in bringing technology and capability to Scotland that was previously undertaken overseas.
Montrose currently produces active ingredients for drugs used to treat diseases such as respiratory and HIV/AIDS, while the Irvine site produces antibiotics. GSK is the biggest investor in life sciences in Scotland.
Roger Connor, president of global manufacturing and supply at the drugs giant, said: “Our people here in Montrose manufacture the primary ingredients that then go forward to be put in inhalers, pills, capsules and injections for patients across the globe.”
Noting that Montrose “will work alongside our sister site in Singapore to meet international demand for some of the world’s most important medicines”, he added: “Ours is a fast-moving and competitive environment and the investment should be seen as a vote of confidence in the skills, standards and drive of the people who work here.”
The bulk of GSK’s manufacturing investment will be spent on a new-build biopharmaceutical plant in Ulverston, Cumbria, that will cost some $350 million to set up and once operational will employ hundreds of workers. At one point Montrose had been in the running as the site for the new plant.
GSK made its commitment to the UK as a manufacturing base after the UK government introduced its ‘patent box’, which lowers the tax rate on profits from products based on UK-owned intellectual property.
Phil Taylor
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