The biotech company announced a multimillion-euro investment to expand its cell therapy production facility at its Grange Castle site.
Takeda Ireland has today (16 February) announced that it will invest €36.4m in its Grange Castle site to address growing global demand, creating 100 new highly skilled jobs over the next three years.
The investment will support the expansion of the company’s cell therapy production facility in Dublin. Takeda confirmed that the majority of the new roles will be manufacturing but there will also be some engineering, quality assurance and quality control roles.
Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar, TD, said: “Our highly skilled workforce is just one of the reasons why Ireland is recognised as a global hub for biopharmaceutical companies like Takeda. I wish them every success with their expansion plans.”
At the end of last year, the biotech company began the expansion of its new oncology production line in Bray, Co Wicklow, having invested €20m in the facility over the previous two years. Through this expansion, the Bray site will produce, package and ship two new cancer treatments.
The Grange Castle site will be the first commercial-scale cell therapy production facility of its kind in Ireland. Following the expansion, the site will play an important role in supplying European, US and Canadian markets with a cell therapy treatment option for patients.
Thomas Wozniewski, Takeda’s global manufacturing and supply officer, said the investment “highlights the importance of cell therapy” for the company.
“The expansion of the cell therapy manufacturing line in Grange Castle will help us to serve more patients worldwide, and it underlines our commitment to Ireland as a key country. With its advanced use of digital technologies, the cell therapy manufacturing lines in Grange Castle are a testimony to our innovation capabilities,” he said.
Martin Shanahan, CEO of IDA Ireland, added that cell therapy is widely considered as “the next generation of pharmaceutical therapies”.
“These products require highly innovate approaches to manufacturing and offer unparalleled opportunities in the treatment of disease. This investment is an important endorsement of Ireland’s reputation as a global location of excellence for next generation biopharmaceutical products,” he said.
While Takeda is investing in its Irish sites, its manufacturing facility in Dunboyne was acquired by MSD in August last year. Takeda had announced its intention to divest the facility following a strategic review of the company’s global biologics manufacturing network.
