Project Management wins €250m Wyeth contract

THE FIRM overseeing the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road stadium, Project Management, has won a €250 million contract with US giant Wyeth Nutritionals in China and Singapore.

Wyeth Nutritionals, part of the US-based multinational Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, has hired Project Management and its partner M&W Zander to manage the design and construction of two manufacturing facilities in the far east.

The plants will produce infant formula milk. The total value of the two projects comes to $400 million (€252 million), Project Management told The Irish Times yesterday.

One plant will be located at Suzhou, a major city north of Shanghai in China. The development will cost $280 million. It will be 50,000 sq m and will be the largest green-field project of its kind undertaken to date in Asia.

When it is in full operation, it will employ 500 people. It will primarily supply the local market.

The Singapore facility will be a 12,000 sq m expansion of an existing plant that Wyeth operates there.

Project Management's international director Eyre Tarrant said yesterday they underlined the Irish group's increasing strength in the Asian market.

"Over the last 12 months we have won significant business in the Asian region and we are working on growing our presence in this increasingly important market," Mr Tarrant said.

Project Management forged an alliance with M&W Zander early last year. It specialises in building hi-tech manufacturing plants and facilities in the pharmaceutical, electronic, biotech and food industries.

Project Management has offices in Cork and Dublin and employs 1,700 people in its operations around the world. It is active in Ireland, Britain, central and eastern Europe and Asia, into which it expanded in 2006.

In Ireland, some of its key projects include the €350 million Landsdowne Road redevelopment, the Pier D extension at Dublin airport, as well as biomedical facilities for Wyeth in Dublin and Centocor in Cork.

Project Management's links with Wyeth date back to the early Nineties, when it managed the expansion of the multi-national's nutritional plant in Askeaton, Co Limerick. Wyeth is one of the world's biggest manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and consumer healthcare products.