By Business & Finance 
Shire has announced an expansion of its global biotechnology manufacturing capacity over the next four years by investing $400m in Ireland.
Shire will create a new biologics manufacturing campus, which it expects will lead to the creation of approximately 400 permanent jobs on a 120-acre site at Piercetown, Co. Meath.
Construction of the new site will begin in mid-2016 with the site expected to be operational by mid-2019.
The roles at Shire’s new campus will consist of highly skilled, full-time jobs in the areas of R&D, operations, technical staff, engineering and construction.
Shire’s senior vice president of Technical Operations, Tim Kelly, commented: “The expansion supports our manufacturing strategy to develop and provide innovative specialty medicines for patients. Ireland is a strategically important location for Shire, providing both excellence in life science R&D and manufacturing. We already have a strong team on the ground in Ireland and believe that it is the right location for us to build a new state of the art facility which will complement our existing manufacturing operations in the US.”
Martin Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland, added: “Ireland is an attractive location for many industries, but for the life sciences and biotechnology sectors in particular. These are sectors in which we excel and we are very pleased that Shire is building on its existing presence here with the development of a new campus at Piercetown, Co. Meath. This investment by Shire demonstrates not only IDA’s strategy of attracting biotechnology investment to Ireland but also our focus on supporting balanced regional economic development. It is also worth noting that this is the second significant investment for Meath in the past six months.”
