MilliporeSigma, a unit of Germany's Merck KGaA, opened a 150 million euro ($177 million) filtration products plant in Cork, bolstering the company’s goal to expand global manufacturing operations.
The 3,000-square-meter clean room facility is part of MilliporeSigma’s investment of 440 million euro ($521 million) in Ireland it announced in May 2022.
Expanding its Irish operations is just another step in Merck KGaA’s 2020 Life Science plan to spend 2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) to grow its operations. The company also previously announced it wanted to boost group sales to approximately 25 billion euros ($30 billion) by the end of 2025. Last year, the company's global sales reached 21.2 billion euros.
The Cork facility, which is expected to begin operations by the end of the year, will support global demand for filtration devices integral to making vaccines and biologic drugs such as monoclonal antibodies and cell and gene therapies, the company said in a Sept. 18 press release.
“By expanding manufacturing in Cork, we reinforce our in-region-for-region manufacturing and supply model, reducing cross-border risks and providing manufacturers with reliable access to critical filtration technologies they need to deliver life-changing therapies,” Jean-Charles Wirth, MilliporeSigma's chief executive, said in the release.
The investment in filtration operations in Ireland is expected to result in the creation of more than 200 new jobs by the end of 2028.
Merck KGaA has been on a tear ramping up its manufacturing operations over the last few years.
Among the numerous deals it made in 2024 related to production expansion, the company said it was pumping $76 million into increasing capacity at its antibody-drug conjugate facility in St. Louis, signing a partnership deal with South Korean CDMO Lotte Biologics to focus on biopharma manufacturing and shelling out $600 million to acquire Wisconsin-based gene therapy producer Mirus Bio.
More recently, MilliporeSigma and Simtra BioPharma Solutions in June entered a five-year partnership to create a “turnkey offering” for drugmakers seeking ADC manufacturing.