Today’s announcement comes after a previous €38m investment in the facility just last year.

Biopharma multinational BioMarin has announced a new €60m investment to expand its Shanbally, Co Cork facility.

According to the company, the expansion, announced today (9 December), will result in a new four-story laboratory facility, enabling the company to increase its production capacity for currently approved medicines while creating new room for future growth.

Today’s announcement comes after a previous €38m investment in the facility just last year, which boosted the company’s manufacturing capacity.

The 2023 expansion was an aseptic production facility from which the company manufactured, packaged and labelled its therapies for global distribution. The expansion – which made the Cork site BioMarin’s largest manufacturing facility outside the US – also allowed the company to begin end-to-end manufacturing for a number of its commercial products, as well as produce additional clinical and commercial products, including gene therapies.

Manufacturing medicines in bulk, BioMarin operates out of two sites in Ireland – the Cork manufacturing facility, which opened in 2012 and the Earlsfort Terrace site in Dublin, which has served as BioMarin’s headquarters for Canada and Europe since 2019.

Spending 13 years in Ireland, the company employs more than 500 people in the country.

“This investment in our Cork facility reflects our ongoing commitment to enhancing our industry – leading global manufacturing capabilities and supporting the growth of our innovative medicines for our people living with rare conditions around the world,” said Evelyn Marchany Garcia, the senior vice president and chief quality officer of BioMarin Pharmaceutical.

“The Shanbally facility plays a crucial role in our global network, and this expansion emphasises our confidence in Ireland’s skilled workforce and the strategic importance of this site to BioMarin’s long-term success.”

Earlier this year, BioMarin Pharmaceutical was declared the best company to work for in Ireland by LinkedIn in its latest annual ranking of employers.

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