Pfizer has announced a series of investments, totaling approximately $3.29 billion, to expands its manufacturing sites in Ireland, Belgium, and Michigan. The company is investing EUR $1.2 billion ($1.27 billion) each in its sites in Grange Castle, Dublin Ireland, and Puurs, Belgium, and is investing $750 million to expand its site in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The $1.27-billion expansion at its site in Grange Castle, Dublin, Ireland, which is Pfizer’s biggest expansion investment to date in Ireland, includes a new facility to double manufacturing capacity for biological drug substances. The project is currently (as reported on December 1, 2022) in preliminary design phase with construction expected to commence onsite in 2024. The new facility is slated for completion in 2027. The expansion is expected to add a further 400–500 jobs at the site to bring the total number of Pfizer employees in Ireland to approximately 5,500.  

The $1.27-billion expansion at the company’s site in Puurs, Belgium, which is slated to be completed over the next three years, is divided into three areas: expansion of production capacity, expansion of cold-storage options and expansion of packaging processes. The site is a production site for COVID-19 products and is a launch site for innovative medicines. 

The expansion includes the construction and equipment of a new isolator facility center with two production modules for additional filling capacity. In addition, Pfizer is building a flexible freezer warehouse that consists of two different freezer modules with independent temperature regulation for cold storage. The site is also expanding its Center for Secondary Packaging, which has already undergone a large-scale expansion, to add 16 additional packaging cabins. The new projects are estimated to provide an additional 250 jobs, building on the expansion of the site during the pandemic. Some of the projects are already underway,  and others will start in early 2023. 

The $750-million expansion at its sterile injectables manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, will add aseptic manufacturing equipment, systems, and design, including multiple self-contained modular manufacturing lines. Proposed products under the expansion will use new mRNA technology and ultra-low temperature storage. One of Pfizer’s largest plants, the Kalamazoo facility is a global supplier of sterile injectable, liquid, and semi-solid medicines, and active pharmaceutical ingredients and produces more than 144 products. Currently, the multi-story, 400,000-square-foot modular aseptic processing production facility employs 3,000 Pfizer employees and contractors, and the expansion is expected to create 300 jobs. The new investment builds upon  the company’s initial investment of $465 million to build the modular aseptic processing facility at the Kalamazoo site, announced in 2018, and a $120-million expansion announced earlier this year (2022).  

Source: IDA Ireland,  Pfizer (Ireland), Pfizer (Belgium),and Michigan Governer’s Office