Almost 300 new jobs are to be created by three pharmaceutical firms in Co Kerry.

The positions are being created as part of phase one of the development of a €4.7 billion Global Pharmaceutical Centre of Excellence (GPCE) in Tralee.

The 282 new jobs announced today by the International Prevention Research Institute (iPRI), Global Research Services (GRS) and Optivia Biotechnology are primarily research and development roles and will come on stream over the next fifteen months. Recruitment for the new positions is expected to begin in May.

The promoters of the centre are seeking to establish a campus of over fifty different small to medium sized pharmaceutical interests in the town and it is hoped that up over 4,500 people could be working at the facility within the next four years.

Funding for the initial development of the centre has already been secured and discussions are currently on-going with a number of investors including the Saudi Arabian government.

The project is being supported by a board which is chaired by Pharmadel's chief executive Pat Barry and includes former EU Commissioner, David Byrne, Anglo Irish Bank chairman Alan Dukes and founding president of the University of Limerick, Dr Edward Walsh.

The new jobs will initially be established by the three organisations at the Centrepoint development in Tralee. However, a 32-acre site at the Kerry Technology Park has been identified for the development of the overall campus for which a planning application will be submitted in May.

“We’re delighted to see this first announcement of jobs by three well-respected organisations, part of on-going development of the Global Pharmaceutical Centre of Excellence. We promised we’d deliver 300 jobs in the first phase, so this is a very good milestone,” said Rory Doyle, chief executive of the proposed centre, and a senior executive with the Cork-based drug firm Pharmadel.

The iPRI is an independent research organisation which was founded by a group of scientists. Optivia Biotechnology id a developer of a suite of transporter assay services while GRS is a privately held clinical research organisation providing services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies for the efficient clinical development of new compounds and devices with a specialty in cardiovascular, renal, metabolic and rheumatic disease therapeutic areas.