I am honoured to be here this morning to officially open the Wyeth BioPharma campus at Grange Castle. This opening comes at a particularly appropriate time as we come to the end of the first British Association “Festival of Science” in Ireland since 1957. I am particularly pleased that Professor Lord Robert Winston, who addressed the Festival on Tuesday, is here with us today.
This $1.8 billion dollar investment by Wyeth has been a major endorsement of Ireland as a location-of-choice for global manufacturing investments. As one of the largest integrated biopharmaceutical campuses in the world, it will showcase this country as a leader in terms of the international biopharma industry.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Essner and all those at Wyeth who were responsible for the decision to locate this facility in Ireland. I want to thank you for your confidence in our ability to meet your stringent deadlines in getting an operation of this scale up and running in such a short space of time.
From my point of view it is particularly encouraging to see one of the world’s largest research-driven pharmaceutical and health care product companies continuing to reinvest in Ireland. With over 52,000 people employed by Wyeth worldwide and sales of some $17.4 billion you are justifiably ranked in top position in the sector.
Your long history of pioneering developments in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, with leading products in the areas of women’s health care, neuroscience, vaccines and infectious diseases, as well as the development of nutritionals, has ensured your success over many years. And I am confident that with the $2.4 billion dollars that you allocated to Research and Development last year, with further increases expected this year, you will continue to be at the forefront in driving innovation in the sector.
And your relationship with this country also goes back over a very long time – thirty-one years in fact. This plant here in Grange Castle is Wyeth’s fifth operation in this country and brings to over 3,000 the number of people employed by you in Ireland. Since your establishment of the Wyeth Nutritionals facility in Askeaton in County Limerick in 1974 you have continued to reinvest in this country with operations in Sligo, Newbridge and Dublin. We, in Ireland, value extremely highly the relationship we have built up with you over that time and we are determined to foster and develop it over the years to come.
The speed with which this particular facility was constructed and has gone into production - on what was literally a greenfield site - is an example of the Irish ‘can-do’ attitude. That attitude has been one of the hallmarks of our success in attracting foreign direct investment from global manufacturing companies for over 40 years. And it continues to be one of the reasons why Ireland maintains its reputation as a premier location worldwide for foreign direct investment.
And now with over 1,000 full time employees recruited to date here at Grange Castle, Wyeth has confirmed its position as the largest employer in the pharmaceutical sector in Ireland. I am particularly delighted to hear that this campus is already in commercial production of Enbrel – your breakthrough product for the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis. With the campus now delivering commercial product to patients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Grange Castle is already positioning itself as a strategic global supply plant.
The Pharmaceutical/Biopharmaceutical sector is extremely important for Ireland and has experienced significant growth in recent years. The latest figures indicate exports within the sector to the value of €29billion in 2003. This represents approximately 40% of all manufacturing exports from the country. The sector is also the largest contributor of corporation tax at some €1.1billion in 2003 and directly employs over 17,000 highly skilled people.
Most noteworthy perhaps is that almost all of the pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical companies located in Ireland have been involved in constant reinvestment over the years. That is a real endorsement of our ability to meet the evolving skills’ needs and supports necessary within the sector.
As we celebrate this opening today, it is most encouraging to note that Wyeth is not alone in viewing Ireland as a location of choice for its global manufacturing investments. There are, in fact, an impressive number of cutting-edge manufacturing investments being undertaken by leading international companies in this country at the moment. These include significant investments by companies such as Intel, Guidant, Pfizer, Abbott and Centocor.
These investments, plus the many other new significant and niche manufacturing investments underway, demonstrate that the manufacturing sector remains a major pillar of the Irish economy. Furthermore it continues to account for a substantial proportionof our foreign direct investment.
That said, we do recognise that the factors required by manufacturing companies in today’s global business environment create an unprecedented demand for knowledge, innovation and flexibility. In the past, low cost was seen as the main element in our competitive advantage. Whilst moderate costs still matter, the key competitiveness factor nowadays is continuously improving productivity. That requires increased emphasis on, and investment in, Research and Development, skills development and our supporting infrastructure.
Here in Ireland, we have placed R&D at the heart of our economic development strategy in recent years. The Government recognise that if we are to attract more and more high quality, research focussed investment into this country, then we must continue to provide the highly skilled personnel and supports required by leading industry players.
In that context, Wyeth is exactly the type of R&D focussed industry that we have sought to attract, retain and develop within Ireland. I am particularly delighted for example to see Wyeth and Irish universities collaborating on major research projects supported by Science Foundation Ireland. Not only will such collaborative research enable the generation of new products for market, it will also create the seedbed for ongoing scientific excellence in this country.
Science Foundation Ireland represents just one outcome of our focus on Research and Development in terms of our long-term economic development. Throughout the country we are striving to build clusters of cutting-edge research and innovation, in particular through partnerships between industry and our third-level institutions. This is being achieved in particular through the support of IDA Ireland, the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions, Science Foundation Ireland and the National Bioprocessing Centre initiatives. Under our National Development Plan 2000-2006 for example, we are achieving a five-fold increase in investment in technology, innovation and scientific research. Furthermore, a 20% tax credit was introduced in 2004 for qualifying incremental expenditure by companies on R&D.
These reflect just some of the measures we are undertaking to ensure that Ireland remains a location of choice for companies such as Wyeth into the future. The bottom line is that we in Ireland strive to become leaders in the global knowledge economy. In order to do this, we will continue to invest in the people and supports that have earned us our reputation to date as a good place to do business.
With our underlying strengths, we are confident that high tech sectors like the pharmaceutical sector will remain a key part of Ireland’s economy well into the future.
Thank you.
ENDS