IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for industrial development in Ireland, is keen on quality investments from Indian companies looking to access European and global markets. Now the agency is focusing on sectors with the highest potential for delivery and which fits with Ireland’s value proposition.
" We have built relationships with leading Indian companies in sectors such as technology, business services, life sciences and engineering. Ireland is now home to a number of India’s largest and best known global companies such as HCL, Wipro, Wockhardt, Reliance Life Sciences, Ranbaxy, Crompton Greaves, Tata Consultancy Services and Firstsource. More than 35 Indian companies with over 2500 employees have invested in Ireland", John Kilmartin, Director IDA Ireland told Pharmabiz in an email interaction.
"The Indian pharmaceutical industry continues to grow and expand to new markets including Europe. Ireland provides a natural base from which Indian companies can build their European and US markets given the time zone, common language, Ireland’s track record in the pharma / biotech world and our 12.5 per cent corporate tax, allowing companies access funds for growth and expansion" he added.
Since the 1960’s, Ireland has been a location of choice for the manufacture of blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor, Zyprexa, Singulair and Risperdal. Major drug makers including Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Servier have been manufacturing in Ireland for several decades.
These established pharmaceutical companies have been joined by a new wave of biotech firms such as Amgen, Genzyme, Biomarin, Alkermes, Grifols, Regeneron and Jazz Pharmaceuticals during the past few years.
IDA estimates that the biopharmaceutical industry has made about $ eight billion worth of capital investment in new biotech facilities in Ireland, most of which has come in the last 10 years. This is probably close to the biggest wave of investment in new biotech facilities anywhere in the world. Recent investments include BioMarin, Amgen, Eli Lilly, Grifols, Regeneron, Johnson and Johnson (Ethicon), Alexion, Mylan, Sanofi Genzyme, he said.
While many Irish companies focus on branded patented products, there are others that are also engaged in the production of off-patent drugs, and sometimes branded generics if they can manage the margins; companies are not automatically moving their manufacturing overseas when their drugs go off patent.
In response to the growth in biopharma manufacturing, the Irish Government invested €57million in the creation of the National Institute for Bioprocess Research and Training ( NIBRT) , a unique facility that was designed to mimic a state-of-the-art biotech drug substance and drug product manufacturing facility with high-tech analytics/quality labs. This allows research to be conducted on biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes in a real world environment. It also provides an environment for practical training of staff in a real-world biopharmaceutical manufacturing environment with access to latest industry relevant equipment. In 2013, NIBRT provided practical training to over 2,000 people, providing a strong supply of talent into the growing industry. NIBRT has recently announced collaboration with the Irish Medical Device Association who has a very active programme in the development of training programmes for the medical device industry, working with the Government training agency, Skillnets.
On IDA looking for prospective Indian life science companies including pharma biotech and healthcare covering medical devices to invest in Ireland, Kilmartin said that it was currently in a discussion with Indian companies who are expanding into the European and US marketplaces. Indian companies expand primarily to access the lucrative European marketplace placing sales and marketing operations and supply chain operations in the region. However, IDA also sees Indian companies setting up manufacturing operations in Europe to access the quality of the manufacturing environment to aid security of supply especially into the US marketplace and also to add the Made in Europe tag as a marketing tool.
Ireland is a gateway to Europe and beyond. It allows companies barrier free access to Europe’s 500 million consumers. The European Union’s free trade agreements and the ability to attract multinational/multilingual staff allows companies trade across the region from a single location.
Its time zone makes it the perfect location as an interface to Europe and the US for Indian companies
The Irish Government through IDA Ireland provides assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large multinationals to set-up and run their European operations in Ireland.
IDA helps companies execute their plans quickly and remains in contact throughout the life time of a company’s operations in Ireland to provide assistance where required. Novartis, Cook Medical, have invested here. Nine of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world have operations in Ireland which include Pfizer, Merck, Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson.
More than 93 per cent companies rate their investment in Ireland a success. Over 30 Indian companies have operations in Ireland employing over 2500 staff. From Indian life sciences space, it is Wockhardt, Reliance Life Sciences and Ranbaxy. The big advantage is that Ireland’s business environment makes it easier to do business in Europe. There is an accessible, efficient, bureaucracy-free system. For instance, the ability to register a company takes less than three weeks.
The presence of clusters of leading global companies in life sciences, means the local supply base is tuned to the needs of companies. The country also operates a common law system similar to the Indian legal law system making it one of the most accessible litigation platforms in the world with a dedicated commercial court, he added.
The visible trends on the Indian life sciences horizon are that while generics and biosimilars are the dominant features of the Indian pharma/biotech industry, more companies are getting involved in researching and developing new drugs. There is also a move towards quality with industry raising standards of manufacturing with GMP and lean processes becoming the norm. IDA is also seeing an increasing number of Indian companies looking to expand their marketplace to Asia, Africa, Europe and the US, pointed out the director.
The three Indian pharmaceutical companies Ranbaxy, Reliance Life Sciences and Wockhardt having operations in Ireland have opted for inorganic growth paths.
Ranbaxy acquired Rima Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a generic pharmaceuticals production facility in 1996 in Cashel, Ireland. It currently employs 92 people in the manufacturing and packaging of a wide range of generic pharmaceuticals in the form of tablets and capsules. Products are exported to the UK and other EU countries.
Reliance Life Sciences bought GeneMedix in 2007 and now manufactures biosimilars like erythropoietin (EPO), plasma protein and provide clinical research services. They have 75 employees currently in their Tullamore site.
Wockhardt acquired Pinewood Labs in the UK in 2006 and thus acquired its manufacturing facility Pinewood Healthcare in Clonmel, Ireland. Established in 1976, Pinewood Healthcare is a highly renowned company in Ireland and currently employs over 360 people. Pinewood manufactures liquids, creams/ointments and powders under its own licences in Ireland, which are distributed to its international markets directly from its Irish facility. Pinewood also has a facility in Dublin for warehousing and offices.
IDA Ireland has been attending Bangalore Bio since over five to six years as attendees. The conference allows it to catch-up with contacts within companies whom it already has a relationship as well as meet executives from new companies. It provides the rare opprtunity to have an industry unit available in one location for three days. Moreover the talks and panel discussions are a good opportunity to assess trends in the Indian pharmaceutical industry and get a feel for the direction of the industry for the year ahead, he noted.
There are several areas suited for collaboration between Ireland and India in biotech. Indian companies can opt for Ireland as a base for their European operations. They can supply the Irish pharmaceutical industry on a sub supply basis and vice versa. There are also opportunities in collaboration on research projects and joint ventures to enter each other’s markets, he said.
Ireland is already the world’s leading hub for pharmaceutical development and manufacturing because of its combination of research capability, operational excellence and regulatory compliance. It has the potential to be a hub for convergence between the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, besides medical devices sector. There is ample scope for convergence between the tech-manufacturing sector and the pharmaceutical industry in areas, such as smart manufacturing, digital manufacturing and 3D printing. These are some of the likely future efforts in the area of biotech for IDA Ireland, said Kilmartin.