West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. said in a recent statement that it plans to expand its global manufacturing operations to include a new site in Waterford, Ireland. The new facility will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other high-value packaging components, in order to meet growing demand from pharmaceutical and biotech customers. Once operational, this new site could bring about 150 new jobs.
"With diabetes emerging as one of the fastest growing diseases globally, our pharmaceutical customers are expanding their production lines for injectable insulin. To meet this growing demand, we are announcing an expansion today that will help us address this need and continue to serve this critical patient population," said Donald E. Morel, Jr., West's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "In the future, we intend for this site to be a center of excellence for advanced packaging components to meet the needs of our customer base for a range of sophisticated injectable therapies."
Construction is planned to begin in early 2015 on the 44-acre site at Knockhouse on Old Kilmeaden Road in Waterford, subject to the project obtaining requisite planning and zoning approvals. This site will be a center 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. With these expansions, the plant eventually could accommodate between 250 to 300 jobs and involve an investment in the range of €100 million.
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