Jobs blow for Cork as Pfizer to close plant

CORK SUFFERED a jobs blow yesterday with the announcement by one of the country's largest pharmaceutical employers, Pfizer, that it is to close one of its plants in Little Island with the loss of 180 jobs after it failed to find a buyer for the facility.

Pfizer had flagged the likely closure of its OPS 4-6 facility at Little Island on July 3rd last when workers at the plant were informed by management that a planned sale of the facility had fallen through following negotiations with an interested party.

Yesterday, Pfizer's vice president of manufacturing for Ireland and Singapore, Dr Paul Duffy, confirmed that the OPS 4-6 plant at Little Island, which Pfizer acquired in 2005 from Pharmacia, would close on a phased basis before the end of 2009.

"We have worked tirelessly over the past 18 months to sell the Little Island OPS 4-6 plant as a going concern in order that our 180 colleagues would be able to continue working here," said Dr Duffy, adding that the company had successfully sold similar plants in Europe and the US.

"We were initially optimistic that we would find a buyer because there was considerable interest. Unfortunately, that interest has not translated into a sale," he said.

Dr Duffy said that Pfizer had contacted some 600 companies in an effort to find a buyer and had received replies from 150 of these, with some 20 signing confidentiality agreements and 12 coming to inspect the site.

"We entered into due diligence with one of these companies but unfortunately the company didn't believe that the plant met its technical requirements and withdrew - it had nothing to do with price."

Pfizer announced in February 2007 that it was laying off 65 staff at its main plant at Ringaskiddy and was putting both the Little Island OPS 4-6 plant and its facility at Loughbeg near Ringaskiddy up for sale following a global review of its manufacturing operations.

On that occasion, Dr Duffy explained that the company had some 100 plants, including 16 active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) plants, when it started the review in 2004. When the review was completed, the company would have 50 plants and six API plants.

Dr Duffy said that Pfizer had suffered "a big hit" in December 2006 when it stopped clinical trials on its experimental cholesterol drug torcetrapib, which it had been lining up to replace Lipitor, its biggest-selling product, which comes off patent in 2011.

Pfizer had planned to produce the active ingredients for torcetrapib in Cork, with the drug expected to take up 40 per cent of the company's API capacity there, but the withdrawal of the drug from clinical trials resulted in overcapacity.

Dr Duffy confirmed Pfizer is still in negotiations with an interested party for the purchase of its plant at Loughbeg but that if a deal is not concluded by the end of March 2009, the company will also be forced to close that facility with the loss of 300 jobs.

Dr Duffy said that the pharmaceutical industry has been changing, with much investment in biotechnology. Cork had gained in that regard, with Pfizer's decision in May of this year to invest €190 million in a biologics facility, creating some 100 jobs.

Pfizer will retain its OPS 1-3 plant at Little Island, which employs close to 200 people in the manufacture of the active ingredient for Lipitor. It will look at more efficient ways of producing the ingredient over the next three years before Lipitor comes off patent, Dr Duffy said.

Pfizer currently employs close to 2,200 people at five manufacturing sites and a sales and marketing division in Ireland.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times