Expansion plan at Almac prompts recruitment drive

pharmafile | September 29, 2009 | News story | Manufacturing and Production Almac 

Northern Ireland's Almac Group has announced another raft of expansions in its contract research and manufacturing operations, which could boost its headcount by around 20% over the next five years.

The privately-held company grew revenues around 15% last year at a time when many of its peers in the pharmaceutical outsourcing sector are seeing demand pegged back, with drugmakers holding off on new projects in an effort to conserve resources.

Almac helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies bring their drugs to market by providing a range of services, including R&D, formulation development, clinical supply management and clinical technologies.

Almac already employs around 2,500 people, including around 1,500 in Northern Ireland and other areas of the UK and 1,000 in the US, and says it could boost that number by 500 with its new investment programme.

That total includes a recruitment drive announced earlier this year that will add 128 graduate and research positions at Craigavon.

The company has just been granted planning permission to build an office suite, warehousing and an R&D laboratory on a 5.4-acre site alongside its current headquarters in Craigavon, which have themselves benefitted from the first phase of a £9 million (14 million euros) revamp in the last few months.

The first stage of the expansion increased manufacturing capacity and added 30,000 sq. ft. of laboratory and office space, and bolstered Almac's analytical and microbiological services capacity.

A new diagnostics unit specialising in developing companion diagnostics for use alongside drugs in 'personalised' medicine was opened in Craigavon in July. Meanwhile, Almac is also expanding in North America, and is currently investing $112 million in a new-build headquarters in Pennsylvania that will consolidate its two facilities in Audubon and Yardley.

In July the company said it had recruited 150 staff at the unit in the last six months and was actively recruiting another 70, with the aim of moving its entire staff into the new unit in July 2010.

At the time, Jim Murphy, president and managing director of Almac's clinical research operations, said: "The challenging economic climate has not reduced demand for our services [and] our aggressive hiring and expansion plans come in response to that demand."

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