Tánaiste announces 380 new jobs for Baldoyle in Dublin.

'€40 million investment enhances Ireland's reputation as a leading location for global pharmaceutical companies' - Harney

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney TD announced today (Thursday 8th May 2003) that Gerard Laboratories at Baldoyle Industrial Estate, Dublin, has concluded negotiations with IDA Ireland for the major expansion of its pharmaceuticals tabletting facility, which will involve an investment of almost €40 million and will create an additional 380 new jobs by 2010.

Gerard Laboratories is a fully owned subsidiary of Merck KGaA of Germany, now one of the top ten generic pharmaceuticals manufacturers worldwide, having only entered the generics business in 1994.

About half of the new jobs will be in production areas, with a further quarter in quality control and the remainder in maintenance and administration positions. Recruitment will commence in 2004 following the construction of an additional 110,000 sq. ft. building for granulation, tabletting, coating and laboratory space on a site adjoining the existing facility. Planning approval has already been granted and construction will get underway this Summer.

Making the announcement the Tánaiste said: "This investment will enable Gerard Laboratories to triple output and become the Group's most important generic pharmaceuticals manufacturing site worldwide. Today's announcement continues Ireland's success as a leading location for significant new high quality investments from global pharmaceutical companies."

"This is a much needed boost for North Dublin, particularly following the announcement last week of the closure of the Celestica plant in Swords and it demonstrates that the area remains an attractive location for investment," the Tánaiste added.

Gerard Laboratories currently employs 300 people in Baldoyle manufacturing tablets and capsules for the European market, supplying over 1,500 products. Under this investment it will manufacture thirteen new products at its Baldoyle facility for a wide range of therapeutic applications including anti-depressants and anti-cholesterol. The expansion will increase the facility's solid dosage capacity for the European and US markets and is being implemented to take advantage of the significant growth arising from the expiry of €47 billion worth of worldwide pharmaceutical patents by 2006.

In the last two years, since May 2001, eighteen new IDA-supported investments, totalling almost €810 million and creating 4,500 new jobs have been announced in the pharmaceuticals and healthcare sectors. This is in addition to the Wyeth BioPharma $1 billion investment for Clondalkin for the establishment of what is the largest single-site biopharmaceutical campus in the world, with 450 of the planned 1,300 new jobs already recruited and a further 420 to be recruitment by the end of this year.

"This success has further enhanced Ireland's reputation as a leading location for such significant new investments and shows that Ireland, despite the on-going difficult global economic environment, maintains a competitive edge for high quality, higher value and technologically advanced investments from international companies in these sectors," said the Tánaiste.

Ireland is a key location for the pharmaceuticals sector in Europe with 9 of the top 10 companies in the world having operations here and over 120 IDA-supported companies employing around 20,000 people across the sector. In the healthcare sector Ireland is also home to 13 of the world's top 20 companies, with 83 IDA-supported companies employing over 16,400 people.

About Gerard Laboratories

Gerard Laboratories at Baldoyle is the European manufacturing centre for Merck Generics. The facility was founded in 1986 and was acquired by Merck in 1995 and has been expanded twice since then. Merck's European logistic centre has been located there since 1999.

Gerard Laboratories' products cover a wide range of treatments which include gastrointestinal and cardiovascular medicines. Gerard Laboratories is one of the major suppliers of branded generic pharmaceuticals to the local Irish market demonstrating significant growth in recent years.

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, is a publicly quoted company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Merck consists of a global group of companies specialising in pharmaceuticals, with three divisions - ethicals, generics and consumer healthcare; chemicals, with five divisions - liquid crystal, pigments, electronic chemicals, reagents and life science products; and the distribution of laboratory products. With 192 companies operating in 55 countries it employs 34,500 people worldwide. It had sales of €7.5 billion for 2002.

ENDS