Wyeth, Ireland Unveil Joint $32.5M Plan

[earl]

Wyeth and the Irish government unveiled a joint euro24 million (US$32.5 million) plan Wednesday to strengthen the drugmaker's R&D operations in Ireland, already the largest European base for the U.S.-based multinational.

The investment will allow Wyeth's current 2,500-square-meter (27,000-square-foot) laboratory at its biopharmaceutical campus in Clondalkin, west Dublin, to expand to 8,500 square meters (more than 90,000 square feet). The company also plans to employ 10 more scientists and researchers.

"The Irish development team has already delivered excellent scientific and process improvements for Wyeth, and this investment today is a further vote of confidence," said Michael Kamarck, senior vice president of Wyeth's BioPharma division.

Wyeth, which is based in Madison, New Jersey, operates four manufacturing plants and a sales facility in Ireland that employ 3,300 people. It also has major European facilities in Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Its Clondalkin campus, opened in 2005, has 1,270 workers on 1.1 million square meters (11.8 million square feet) of space for researching, developing and manufacturing drugs. Its chief products are the rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel and next-generation vaccines for infants.

The government Investment and Development Agency, which is responsible for enticing foreign companies to Ireland, said it had given Wyeth financial incentives for its expansion but refused to disclose details.

Wyeth Ireland spokesman Peter O'Brien also declined to discuss details the government's contribution to the total investment other than to say it was "significant and substantial."

Enterprise, Trade and Employment Minister Micheal Martin said the government was determined to persuade high-tech companies to develop more R&D facilities in Ireland, because such knowledge-led work was unlikely to be relocated to other countries once established.

Martin said Wyeth's latest investment would lead to more patented drugs being developed on Irish soil. "The intellectual property resulting from the research will place the Irish operation in a highly strategic position," he said.

www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/25/ap3650738.html

[earl]

setanta said:

There huge empty plants, like 5 minutes away from Wyeth. They don't need to build a new one!
Waste of money.

And how do you know if these plants are suitable for what Wyeth requires? For all you know, converting these buildings to tailor for Wyeth's R&D needs could be as costly if not more expensive than building from scratch. It's not just a matter of having some floorspace with a roof over it. Their current plant is massive, the largest of it's kind in Europe. They need golf carts to get from one end to the other. Splitting the R&D up between two locations would only add to the turmoil of getting around.

[earl]

setanta said:

You know that they aren't going to keep the tea and one end of the plant and the milk down the other end. They're not thick enough to spread connected departments all over the campus. People have phones and email as well.

If it's not a matter of 4 walls and a roof in plants that have been idle and empty for the last couple of years then what is it?

Many of these R&D facilities require specially designed features, which may have to be incorporated into a structures design. If a company could get away with using some of these empty plants, they would. I'm sure the IDA would do them a good deal on them. A lot of these emptied plants may have been originally designed for a specific task which may not suit other companies, so this issue isn't as black and white as you make out.