Ireland aims to attract biomanufacturing with R&D grants

Barry Heavey, Head of Life Sciences at Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA), said a combination of R&D grants to multinationals, and activity at state-financed biotech centre NIBRT, is drawing big pharma players to manufacture in the country.

At a meeting on Wednesday at NIBRT, the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training, Heavey claimed Ireland’s competitiveness among biomanufacturers goes beyond just low corporate tax rates.

A series of IDA grants for R&D – usually spent on process development to support manufacturing – are bringing investment to the country, he told BioPharma-Reporter.com.

The agency supported Pfizer’s biologics process development at its facility in Cork, among many other grants.

Although Ireland has no home-grown pharma companies, it houses manufacturing facilities for Pfizer, Lilly, Mylan, MSD, Allergan, Bristol Myers Squibb and other drugmakers.

Encouraging these companies to have an Irish base has a knock-on effect of attracting foreign supplier companies and boosting indigenous ones, Heavey added.

“As multinationals are investing in process R&D they might decide to work with a ‘scrappy’ innovative small company.​”

IDA’s R&D grants, and those from sister agency Enterprise Ireland, help “de-risk​” multinationals’ relationships with small subsuppliers of equipment and technology, he said.

“That creates an opportunity for innovative subsuppliers to get into the Irish subsidiaries of multinationals.​

“A lot of subsuppliers believe they have to go to corporate HQ to get the newest technology adopted, but if the Irish site is doing R&D and improving their processes they might be the logical place to go to get their technology adopted.​

“If we give a grant Pfizer to do research and a subsupplier wants to make sure its tech is adopted by Pfizer, they will do innovative R&D in Ireland next to Pfizer.”​

Companies like ProSys, an Irish manufacturer or sampling and containment equipment, have benefited indirectly from the grants by winning contracts with Pfizer, Healey said.

NIBRT​

NIBRT also plays a big role in encouraging foreign investment, Heavey said. The institute takes in scientists from companies around the world – 3,300 so far – and trains them in biomanufacturing, including complex GMP surroundings.

Its clients include Pfizer, Lilly, MSD, Roche, and Janssen.

“The NIBRT facility offers training in a real-world environment, on real equipment. This derisks the transition from trainee to employee,​” said Heavey.

The centre also allows companies to road-test new technology and validate subsystems, with a focus on QC testing and bio-characterisation.

“EU policy now says if you want to stay competitive in manufacturing – you need to stay competitive in this environment.”​

Heavey described NIBRT as creating “an ecosystem​” of pharma and vendor companies drawn to the area looking to partner on QC work:

“It’s a playground for B2B research collaborations.​”