Almac Expands Ireland Facility
Part of the special news roundup of DCAT member companies for the DCAT Week ’17 Special Edition of DCAT Value Chain Insights (April 5, 2017)
Almac Group, a Craigavon, Ireland-based contract pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organization, is expanding in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland, where it has secured premises to build a new facility. Almac will make an undisclosed multi-million British pound investment in the new facility, which will be located in the IDA Business Park.
The expansion has been supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through IDA Ireland, Ireland’s inward investment promotion agency.
The facility will be used by Almac Pharma Services and Almac Clinical Services, both of which are registered to operate in the Republic of Ireland. The new premises increase Almac’s European footprint by 32,000 square feet.
This investment follows Almac’s previous announcement that it is investing around £27 million ($34 million) to expand its operations at its global headquarters in Northern Ireland and in North America and to increase its global headcount to 5,000 by 2017.
The previously announced expansion at its global headquarters in Craigavon, Northern Ireland includes a £5 million ($6.2 million) investment to build an additional laboratory and office facility. Around 170 existing employees will be transferred to the new building. An additional £2 million ($2.5 million) is being invested in the development of the Arran Chemical Company facility in Athlone, Ireland which Almac acquired in 2015 and which expanded Almac’s biocatalysis services under its sciences business unit. The capital project will upgrade the existing site infrastructure and bring additional manufacturing capacity and assets on stream as well as more distillation and drying capabilities. The Northern Ireland expansion project will create 312 new, full-time jobs across a range of functions and increase capabilities for Almac’s sciences, clinical services, clinical technologies, and pharma services businesses.
For its expansions in North America, Almac is investing £20 million ($25 million) in its US headquarter site in Souderton, Pennsylvania to expand its existing 240,000-square-foot facility in addition to leasing a 26,000-square-foot office space in nearby Lansdale, Pennsylvania. Almac also received a funding proposal from the Department of Community and Economic Development that includes a £1.3 million ($1.6 million) Pennsylvania First Program grant and involves investment in new machine lines, computer equipment, software, and an expanded cold storage area.
The Pennsylvania expansion project follows a previoulsy announced investment in September 2016 of £4.2 million ($5.2 million) to expand Almac’s clinical services facility and its diagnostics and clinical technologies operations in Durham, North Carolina. This project will create almost 80 new jobs across its facilities in Durham.
Source: Almac Group