Ireland’s expertise in pharmaceutical and biotech plant design, construction and engineering will be showcased by Enterprise Ireland today.
Enterprise Ireland has attracted more than 50 guests to participate in this week’s inward buyer visit by directly targeting the pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia and Hungary, and visiting guests will include senior figures from Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Roche, UCB and GlaxoSmithKline.
CEO for Enterprise Ireland Frank Ryan explained: “Ireland’s thriving pharmaceutical industry means that Irish engineering firms have been to the forefront in the design, construction and engineering of the world’s most technologically advanced facilities, such as Pfizer in Grange Castle and Centocor in Cork.
“Irish companies have become world leaders in offering specialist construction and engineering services to the pharma and biotech industries … With this strong track record, these Irish firms are in a strong position to pitch for the multi-billion euro investment in similar plants across Europe and even further afield.
In the past two years, Irish companies have secured contracts valued in excess of €80m on building four facilities in Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium – representing a large portion of the €1bn total investment for these plants.
During their visit, these buyers have requested, on average, four individual meetings with the Irish companies present to discuss areas such as project management, process engineering, automation, cleanroom technology and engineering.
Ireland is Europe’s largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals in Europe – around €40bn in 2009 – and 13 of the world’s top 15 biopharma companies have operations here.
