West to invest €100m in new manufacturing plant in Waterford, Ireland
The facility will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and will add 150 jobs
West Pharmaceutical Services plans to invest around €100m to build a new manufacturing plant in Waterford, Ireland.
The new facility will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other high-value packaging components to meet growing demand from its pharmaceutical and biotech customers. West hopes to add 150 new jobs at Waterford once the plant is fully operational, with more jobs added through future expansions.
'With diabetes emerging as one of the fastest growing diseases globally, our pharmaceutical customers are expanding their production lines for injectable insulin,' said Donald Morel, West's Chairman and Chief Executive.
'To meet this growing demand, we are announcing an expansion that will help us address this need and continue to serve this critical patient population.
'In the future, we intend for this site to be a centre of excellence for advanced packaging components to meet the needs of our customer base for a range of sophisticated injectable therapies.'
He added: 'Waterford, Ireland, is an ideal setting for this new plant, given its business-friendly environment and the growing health science industry in the area.'
We intend for this site to be a centre of excellence for advanced packaging components
Construction is expected to begin early next year on a 44-acre site at Knockhouse on Old Kilmeaden Road in Waterford, subject to the project obtaining planning and zoning approvals, which West expects to happen later this year.
The site will be a centre of excellence for West’s proprietary elastomeric sheeting, which is used to package insulin for use in pen injectors.
Future plans include additional manufacturing space for West’s proprietary injectable component product lines, which are integral to many injectable and dosage forms.
With these expansions, the plant eventually could accommodate between 250 to 300 jobs.
West also plans to invest further in the Tech Group, a West subsidiary in Dublin, which specialises in providing device design, development and manufacturing services for pharmaceutical and med-tech customers. The Tech Group already employs more than 230 people at Mulhuddart and is being expanded as a result of securing a number of significant customer contracts.
