Eli Lilly to create 200 Cork jobs

US pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly is to invest €330 million in a new facility at its Kinsale campus in Cork.

The investment will lead to the creation of 200 new jobs at the facility, as well as a further 300 construction jobs which will be created as part of the building works. This will bring Eli Lilly’s total employment in Ireland up to almost 1,000.

The new facility will expand the Kinsale site's existing biopharmaceutical mission with the establishment of an additional world-class commercialisation and manufacturing facility, which will further enhance the company's ability to bring treatments for illnesses such as cancer and diabetes to patients worldwide.

This is the second large investment Lilly has made at its Kinsale site in recent years. In 2006, the company announced a €300 million investment in its first biopharmaceutical manufacturing and new-product commercialisation facility at its Kinsale campus, which came on-stream in 2010.

"This investment is an endorsement of the Lilly Kinsale site's success in developing a biopharmaceutical business in recent years and demonstrates our ability to rise to that challenge. This is in no small part due to the site's excellent performance record, the talent of the workforce, and the support from IDA Ireland," said Ed Canary, general manager of the Kinsale site.

Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Richard Bruton welcomed the development. "The Government is determined to ensure that more announcements like this become real in the coming years," he said.

He was joined by IDA chief executive, Barry O'Leary, who said that the investment demonstrated Lilly's "enduring commitment to Ireland and further evidence that Ireland continues to position itself as a leading location of choice for the commercialisation and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals".

Lilly has been in Ireland for over 30 years and now employs over 700 people in four operations; in Kinsale, Cork City, Sligo and Dublin, involved in bulk pharmaceutical (API), biopharmaceutical manufacturing, animal vaccines, financial shared services, marketing and sales.