THE SALE of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s manufacturing facility at Little Island, Cork has fallen through, it was announced yesterday by the company. It had been hoped to sell the plant as a going concern retaining employment. But yesterday’s announcement caused speculation that the plant might be closed later this year without any replacement and the loss of about 160 jobs.
Over the past year, Pfizer have been actively pursuing potential buyers for their Little Island facility, heavily marketing the site in difficult market conditions.
Staff at the plant were informed by management yesterday that a buyer had been found for the site and the company had entered negotiations, but the sale has fallen through in the last few days.
Director of external affairs for Pfizer Tara Delaney said a number of companies had made visits to the Little Island site and Pfizer had entered the due diligence process with a particular company whose name she could not disclose.
“This company has decided not to proceed further, concluding that the facility does not meet the requirements of its future business plans.
“This is clearly very disappointing as we were hopeful we could reach a positive conclusion,” she said.
Ms Delaney said Pfizer remained very open to exploring all future expressions of interest in the facility. However, at this point none of the other interested companies have expressed an interest in pursuing acquisition of the site.
“We now need a period of time over the next two months to assess the situation,” she explained.
In February 2007, Pfizer Ireland announced that part of the company’s Ringaskiddy site would close by the end of 2007, resulting in the loss of 65 jobs, and that a portion of the API manufacturing facility at Little Island, together with all manufacturing at the Loughbeg API site, would be phased out in 2008 and 2009.
Approximately 180 employees at Little Island work in the areas that will be affected by the phasing out of operations, with about 300 at Loughbeg.
The plan is part of Pfizer’s ongoing initiative to align global manufacturing capacity with product demand – and to improve efficiency and cost effectiveness – by restructuring Pfizer’s manufacturing operations around the world. Ms Delaney said the Loughbeg site remains on the market and that they had a number of interested parties. In May of this year, Pfizer announced an investment of €190 million in the establishment of a new biologics facility at Shanbally, Co Cork which will create 100 high-quality jobs over three years.
