Grifols announces $85m investment in Dublin plant

Spanish plasma pharmaceuticals group Grifols has announced a further €85 million investment in its Dublin plant which formally opened last year.

Grifols said it was bringing forward plans for the construction of a purification plant for the protein albumin “to cover the particularly growing market demand for this protein”. Construction will begin towards the end of this year, with the plant expected to be operation-ready in early 2020.

The investment is part of a larger programme which will see the group build four new plants in a $360 million expansion of its bioscience manufacturing capacity.

Bioscience, the plasma business, is one of the group’s three divisions but accounts for around 75 per cent of its revenues.

Barcelona-based Grifols is one of the three major global players in the business of extracting proteins from blood plasma and using them to develop medicines. It sells into more than 100 countries worldwide.

Plasma is the liquid component of human blood. Approximately 90 per cent of plasma consists of water and about 7 per cent of the remainder consists of essential human proteins and antibodies called plasma proteins, which help maintain vital body functions.

Albumin is one of the earlier proteins to be discovered in plasma. Originally seen as having a couple of basic uses, it is now seen as having potential in a much wider range of therapeutic areas, with Grifols currently studying the possibility of it playing a role in the treatment of Alzheimer’s among other areas.

The company only opened its Irish facility at last year. The $100 million Grange Castle plant was intended to focus on the warehousing of plasma, product labelling, and administrative and commercial activities, delivering up to 140 jobs when fully operational.

At the time, chief executive Victor Grifols said Ireland would be in line for further investment.

Grifols estimates that the expanded production capacities will be sufficient to meet expected growing demand in its markets over the next 15 years.

Mr Grifols is the third generation of his family to run the business. The company was founded in the wake of the Spanish Civil War in 1940 by his grandfather, who developed what is now the industry standard method of extracting plasma proteins from blood.