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The Carrigtwohill site produces a large portion of Gilead’s supply of oral drugs and is getting expanded warehousing and storage capacity.
Biopharma giant Gilead Sciences has received planning permission to expand operations at its Cork manufacturing site.
The €45m expansion will bring expanded warehousing and storage capacity to the company’s Carrigtwohill facility, which handles manufacturing, quality control, packaging and the distribution of various Gilead products.
The facility currently produces 30pc of its global supply of solid oral drugs. Gilead said the expansion will ensure the site continues to play a “central master distributor role” in the company’s supply chain, The Irish Times reports.
The biopharma giant said it plans to expand the site with a focus on sustainability. The new 5,176 sq m warehouse will have 764 solar panels, which the company said will ensure carbon emissions don’t increase with the expansion.
When combined with the site’s existing 1,489 panels, Gilead said 10pc of the facility’s total energy needs will be provided though solar energy, RTÉ reports.
Construction of the new facility is scheduled to begin next month, with a planned end date of November 2024, according to The Irish Times.
Gilead’s manufacturing facilities have been operating in Ireland for around 23 years, supplying countries across Europe and other international locations outside of the US.
Other Irish sites associated with Gilead include a distribution centre in Dublin and a financial shared services centre in Cork, which supports Gilead affiliates in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America.
The company also has a global Pediatric Centre of Excellence in Dublin, which focuses on investigating medicines as potential treatments for children living with serious diseases.
In 2018, Gilead opened an €9.5m facility at the Cork site to boost the manufacture of drugs for the treatment of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis.
In 2020, the biopharma giant started hiring for 140 new roles amid a €7m investment to expand its Cork and Dublin operations. Gilead currently has more than 500 staff across its Irish operations.
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