John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have been informed by IDA Ireland that in the period from January 2012 to date, five of the six site visits by potential investors to south Tipperary visited the vacant Cordis facility in Cashel. These visits were from new companies visiting the location and region for the first time and from senior executives of existing client companies.

IDA Ireland has confirmed that it is actively promoting the vacant Cordis facility as a modern biopharmaceutical-medical technology facility. I understand that the building is an IMB-audited facility, with fully equipped analytical quality control and development laboratories, as well as office-administration space. It has high specification clean room space and flexible production space. It is a large facility - 16,600 sq m - with ample expansion space. It is a modern facility that is readily adaptable for use as a medical technology and-or biopharmaceutical facility, in particular a convergent technology development and manufacturing facility.

This specification serves to align it with current requirements in the life sciences sector, for example, clinical trial production and commercial process development of next generation medical devices or biologics taking place in a location that has the competencies required to scale up to commercial manufacturing and to meet exacting regulatory authorisation requirements. IDA Ireland has confirmed that in addition, Johnson and Johnson corporate real estate services division is marketing the building. It has appointed an agent in Ireland with a view to seeking alternative users from within the Johnson and Johnson group of companies, in particular, from other business units with no prior presence in Ireland.

The pharmaceutical-biopharmaceutical sector today employs in the region of 25,000 people in Ireland and is a very significant contributor to the economy as measured by exports, corporate tax and Irish economy expenditure, in addition to direct employment. Internationally the industry is undergoing significant transformation from traditional pharmaceutical drugs based on small molecules to biopharmaceutical drugs based on large molecules. It is forecast that by 2016, seven of the top ten blockbuster drugs will be biologics.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

In recent years, IDA Ireland has had a sustained marketing focus on the biotechnology sector and as a result the agency has successfully attracted and developed globally leading programmes from companies such as Allergan, Amgen, Centocor, Eli Lilly, Genzyme, Merck, Biomarin and Pfizer as examples. Ireland now has a globally leading biopharmaceutical cluster in the next generation of pharmaceutical products. Over the past ten years Ireland has seen 15 major investments in biopharma manufacturing. Based on some recent announcements an average investment of€400 million is not untypicaland the average per project is of the order of 200 high-value manufacturing jobs. These investments have mitigated Ireland's exposure to the patent cliff on older products.

From across its existing companies, IDA continues to win large scale investments in product development and capability building to take on new product mandates. Ireland already has successful generic manufacturers such as Clonmel Healthcare, Ranbaxy, Wockhardt, Teva and Rowa as examples. These companies have operated successfully from Ireland competing with low cost competition for many years. Some of these investments also have a big construction impact.

See this speech in context