An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister of Ireland announced today that WuXi Biologics, a Hong Kong-listed global open-access biologics technology platform company, is to invest €325 million ($392 million) and create 400 new jobs over five years in a new biologics drug substance manufacturing facility on the Industrial Development Authority’s (IDA) greenfield site in Mullagharlin, Dundalk, Co. Louth.

Headquartered in Wuxi city, Jiangsu province, China, WuXi Biologics is a global platform company providing end-to-end solutions for biologics with a mission to accelerate and transform biologics discovery, development, and manufacturing to benefit patients around the world.

This facility will be built upon the novel approach WuXi Biologics has pioneered deploying multiple single-use bioreactors for commercial biomanufacturing and is also designed to be able to run continuous bioprocessing, a next generation manufacturing technology to be first implemented globally in this campus. A total of 48,000 L fed-batch and 6,000 L perfusion bioreactor capacity will be installed, representing the world’s largest facility using single-use bioreactors.

The manufacturing project in a 26-hectare campus, the company’s first site outside of China, is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

Speaking at today’s announcement in Dundalk, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister of Ireland said, “This is the start of something special. We will see the Factory of the Future, right here in Dundalk. It’s the first sizable greenfield project from China in the pharma sector and I am delighted to see it located here in Dundalk. It’s also the latest in a number of investments in this town which has become a hub for a range of sectors, mainly in the new knowledge based and pharmaceutical sectors.”

Louth hosts National Pen, PayPal, Xerox, Wasdell, and Prometric, to name just a few. In 2017 there were 24 IDA-supported companies in the county, and the number of jobs created by them has tripled from 1,300 in 2010 to almost 4,000. It’s all part of the Government’s goal to increase regional investment and associated jobs by up to 40 percent.

“We have been engaging IDA and Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) for several years before finalizing today’s exciting investment in this community. This is our second major partnership in Ireland, following WuXi NextCODE’s work with Genomics Medicine Ireland (GMI). These ventures showcase how competitive Ireland is for global enterprise and investment, and we are grateful for all the support local agencies and the talented people here have provided for us,” Dr. Ge Li, Chairman of WuXi Biologics, commented.

Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, added, “We are all excited to initiate our first global site to enable local companies and expedite biologics development in Europe. In addition, this is the start and a critical part of our global biomanufacturing network to ensure that biologics are manufactured at the highest quality and with a robust supply chain to benefit patients worldwide. We are committed to Ireland and will work with all local partners to build this state-of-art next generation biomanufacturing facility as a showcase to the global biotech community.”

Today’s announcement expands upon the partnership established among IDA, ISIF, and WuXi AppTec Group companies. WuXi Biologics’ sister company, WuXi NextCODE, has partnered closely with GMI and ISIF since inception. Both investments and collaborations share a common goal: to advance cutting-edge technologies and high-value-added jobs based in Ireland and serve customers and markets worldwide.

(Source: WuXi Biologics)