Teva to invest €65m in its Irish plant

ISRAELI DRUGS firm Teva is to invest €65 million in its Ivax pharmaceutical plant in Waterford, creating 165 jobs over five years.

Grant-aided by the IDA, the investment will allow Ivax to more than double both its inhaler- and tablet-manufacturing capacity.

The world's largest manufacturer of generic medicines, Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd, acquired Ivax in January 2006.

The Waterford site is the corporation's primary global research centre for respiratory products. The facility has been in existence for 23 years and employs 650 people.

However, once expanded, the Waterford operation will extend to nearly 46,500sq metres and have more than 800 employees.

The Ivax facility is the key supply site for Teva's respiratory products for global markets and is housed in two buildings, while a third facility manufactures oral solid-dose products to treat a range of ailments, largely for the US market.

The new jobs will be in manufacturing, quality control, research and development (R&D), and support services.

The Waterford campus includes an R&D facility with about 70 staff, the majority of whom work on the development of respiratory products.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin, said yesterday: "This investment at the facility here represents significant expansion in both scale and volume, and is a huge vote of confidence in both the staff and management here.

"This strategic investment will significantly increase the production capacity of the site, allowing it to compete successfully with economies of scale in global markets."

Mr Martin said the link between the Ivax research and development facility and the Waterford Institute of Technology was of particular importance to the industry.

Meanwhile, Tom McCabe, general manager of the Waterford facility, yesterday said the Waterford institute had technologies and training that largely "complemented" the facility in Waterford.

Mr McCabe added: "We have a solid strategy for the growth of the operations here in Waterford."

He said the nature of the pharmaceutical industry meant that the jobs would be largely "high-end" in nature.