Pfizer to set up new lab in Ireland
pharmafile | July 10, 2009 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Europe, Ireland, PfizerÂ
Pfizer has earmarked an 11 million euro investment for a new kilo-scale R&D facility at its manufacturing facility in Ringaskiddy, Ireland, and said it would no longer build a biotechnology unit in San Francisco, US.
Ringaskiddy is a major centre for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing for Pfizer, which set up a $300 million plant there in 2001 to make the actives for Viagra (sildenafil), Lipitor (atorvastatin), Norvasc (amlodipine) and several other products.
The bulk ingredients are shipped to other Pfizer sites where they are incorporated into their finished formulations and packaged. The new unit will add to the site's process development capabilities and look at ways to improve the efficiency of compound synthesis.
The investment is a boost to Pfizer's Irish workforce, which has already seen three production plants in Cork – one in Ringaskiddy and other units in at Little Island and Loughbeg – shut down or sold off as a result of the drugmaker's global restructuring efforts.
A year ago the firm conceded defeat in its plan to find a buyer for the Little Island plant and shut it down with the loss of 180 jobs. Around 550 people are still employed at Ringaskiddy. The Loughbeg unit is still on the block but unless a buyer is found soon will close around the end of this year.
San Francisco plans shelved
Meanwhile, Pfizer has also announced that it will no longer move ahead with plans to build a 105,000 sq. ft. biotechnology facility at the Mission Bay Campus of the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF).
The facility had been intended as a new home for Pfizer's Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center, currently based in South San Francisco. The BBC was launched in 2007 as part of a programme to create a biotech-like, entrepreneurial unit within the Pfizer R&D organisation that would "discover, license and acquire" biologic product candidates.
Since then Pfizer has embarked on a major merger with Wyeth, and the head of the BBC, biotech industry veteran Corey Goodman, has resigned from the company and joined new stem cell firm iPierian.
Pfizer said the decision not to move the BBC into a new facility was based on a review of its real estate portfolio as the merger with Wyeth rolls on.
Related stories:
Pfizer to close Irish manufacturing site
August 15, 2008
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