As a newly christened manufacturing facility comes online in one part of Ireland, Merck KGaA plans to turn out the lights at another roughly three hours north.
Merck KGaA plans to discontinue operations at its production plant in Arklow, Ireland, “by the end of 2028,” a company spokesperson confirmed to Fierce Pharma in a statement Wednesday. The decision follows a strategic review of the products made at the site, which prompted Merck KGaA to “discontinue” its API portfolio there, the spokesperson explained.
“Consultation on this proposal will commence immediately,” the spokesperson added, referring to the discussions that will now take place between trade union representatives and the company.
The planned site closure will lead to about 100 job cuts, according to The Irish Times, which reported that Ireland’s biggest trade union, the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), will be representing Merck KGaA staffers in the matter. The company employed roughly 753 people in Ireland at the end of 2024, the publication notes.
Merck KGaA did not respond to Fierce Pharma’s questions about plans for a potential sale of the site or the specific products manufactured there.
The facility in question appears to be registered to Merck KGaA’s CDMO arm Merck Life Science, which would track with its API production qualifications, according to the drugmaker’s online sitemap. Merck acquired the Arklow facility back in 2015, Irish Independent and other local news outlets reported Wednesday.
News of the Arklow wind-down comes shortly after Merck KGaA—under the banner of its U.S. and Canada CDMO brand MilliporeSigma—announced the opening of a new, 150-million-euro ($174 million) filtration manufacturing facility in the Irish city of Cork, which is about 222 kilometers (138 miles) south of Arklow.
The 3,000-square-meter (32,292-square-foot) facility will make filtration devices used in the aseptic processing, tangential-flow filtration and viral filtration steps that are essential to the production of drugs like monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and cell and gene therapies, MilliporeSigma said last month.
The project represents a piece of a broader 440-million-euro ($511 million) investment in Ireland that MilliporeSigma first telegraphed in 2022. The entire project is expected to wrap up in 2027 and further includes an expansion of the company’s Carrigtwohill membrane production site, which is also located in Cork.
Across its operations, which encompass both healthcare and electronics businesses, Merck KGaA has been dealt a difficult hand in 2025, thanks in no small part to trade policy uncertainties stemming from the current U.S. administration.
Back in May, Merck KGaA lowered the 2025 sales forecast for its life science division, citing “current uncertainties around tariffs.” The tariff issue seemed to be settled as of late September, but reports of a new U.S. investigation into foreign drug pricing practices potentially portends additional trade duties down the line.
Nevertheless, one of Merck KGaA’s U.S. subsidiaries, EMD Serono, recently agreed to sell its in vitro fertilization drug portfolio at a steep discount in the U.S. through President Donald Trump’s TrumpRx direct-to-consumer purchasing platform. In tandem with that announcement, the company revealed it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce exempting it from Trump’s Section 232 tariffs on pharmaceuticals.
Meanwhile, the German conglomerate’s CEO, Belén Garijo, is slated to step down from her role by the end of next April, to be replaced by Merck KGaA’s current CEO of electronics, Kai Beckmann.
“Beckmann’s proven transformational expertise will be fundamental to deliver the next chapter of our company’s growth,” Johannes Baillou, chairman of the executive board of E. Merck KG, said in a statement addressing Garijo’s departure last month.