Top US biotech firm ditches plans for flagship plant
The Amgen site in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork, yesterday. The company has announced that it will not proceed with a planned ?800m expansion.
US biotechnology giant Amgen dealt Cork a crushing blow yesterday when the company said it was shelving plans for a flagship €800m manufacturing facility and the creation of 1,100 jobs.
Once lauded as the "Intel" of Cork, a spokesperson for the company said yesterday that all operations at the 150-acre Amgen site at Carrigtwohill will cease by mid-December. The decision will also mean 79 redundancies at the plant.
Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheal Martin, said that the decision was regrettable but was down to external business factors.
"Our immediate priority must be to offer every possible support to the 79 existing Amgen staff and the job creation agencies of the State will work with these employees to find them alternative jobs," he said.
Amgen, whose business has been dogged by tighter regulatory restrictions on a range of its drugs, by price pressures on its products as well as poor sales of its anaemia treatment Aranesp, last month announced a cost-cutting programme that included the reduction of its international headcount by between 2,200 and 2,400 workers. The company's share price is off nearly 30pc so far this year. Plans for the Cork facility were announced last year and although the factory was supposed to be finished in 2010, earlier this year Amgen put back the date to 2012.
Despite alarm bells sounding at the time within the local community, both the company and the government gave assurances that the plant would go ahead.
It is understood that Amgen has already spent about €100m on the new site. Although the company said yesterday it is planning to keep the site, sources close to Amgen said it is more likely that it will be sold.
The Amgen decision sparked off angry reaction from opposition parties. Cork south cental Labour Party TD, Ciaran Lynch, said that the local fears had been well founded.
"The Minister (Micheal Martin) was being over-optimistic if not downright naive," he said. "There have been a series of closures in recent years and the announcement of the new plant had brought a wave of optimism to the wider area."
Ireland has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs in the past year, many of which have come from the multinational sector, as the high cost of doing business in this country has made it easier for companies to make the decision to relocate to cheaper markets particularly in Asia and central Europe.
However, Amgen yesterday said the decision to postpone indefinitely the building of the factory was "based purely on developments relating to Amgen's global business" and was no reflection on Ireland.
Opposition parties also called on the Government to find alternative investors for the site which could have resulted in thousands of additional spin-off jobs if it had gone ahead.
"These new jobs would have resulted in significant spin-off developments for the area," said Leo Varadkar, Fine Gael's Enterprise, Trade and Employment spokesperson.
"I am calling on the Government to immediately complete the infrastructural development locally around Carrigtwohill, so that the site can be used for alternative investors."
The news that the project had been pulled has been greeted with dismay by local business representatives.
Chief executive of Cork Chamber of Commerce, Conor Healy, said there was a strong feeling of a loss of opportunity among local business people.
