A pre-designed biomanufacturing facility with advance planning permission is the latest carrot devised by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) Ireland in its efforts to attract international biopharmaceutical manufacturing projects.
The government agency, which is responsible for Ireland's foreign direct investment strategy, hired US firm Jacobs Engineering Group, of Pasadena, California, to develop a blueprint for a fully serviced bioprocessing facility, with a bioreactor capacity of up to 50,000 litres, at a site in Oranmore, on the outskirts of Galway City.
Barry O'Leary, divisional manager, operations, at IDA Ireland, says the basic design is like a "Rubik's Cube", which can be adapted according to the specific requirements of any incoming tenant. The blueprint accelerates the process of moving from concept to full production - normally a four-to-five year cycle - by about one year. "It's initiatives like that that we hope will differentiate Ireland," he says.
The agency plans to repeat the experiment in other locations. "We'll certainly do that in another two. Then we'll look at what the success rate is," O'Leary says. Ireland, which offers companies a 12.5 per cent corporation tax rate and an array of grants and other fiscal incentives, including a zero per cent tax rate on patent income, has a 40-year track record in winning traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing projects. Thirteen of the world's top 15 companies have a substantial presence in the country.
Tapping into the boom
More recently Ireland has started to tap into the biotechnology manufacturing boom as well, targeting both big pharma biologics manufacturing projects and the world's biggest biotechnology companies, both of which have suffered production shortfalls owing to global capacity constraints. Given the complexity of cell-culture-based production, biologic drug manufacturing projects typically involve higher-value process development functions as well.
Wyeth's $1.5 billion BioPharma Campus, located at Grange Castle, near Dublin, exemplifies the new style of manufacturing project IDA Ireland has prioritised. At present, Ireland is vying with Switzerland and Singapore for an Amgen investment of around $1.3 billion, although IDA Ireland will not comment on the status of negotiations. To strengthen the country's capabilities in the field, IDA Ireland is also funding a €72 million National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training at University College Dublin.
The country's indigenous life sciences sector is developing in parallel, although it is starting from a relatively low base. Apart from a small handful of companies, the biotechnology investment boom of the mid- and late 1990s bypassed Ireland. Start-up activity has mushroomed since then, however, with the help of two life sciences seed funds, Seroba BioVentures and GrowCorp, both located in Dublin, which have a combined €45 million under management.
Still small
According to Paul Roben, director of the biotechnology technology transfer arm of Enterprise Ireland (EI Bio), the state agency responsible for developing indigenous firms, there are now upwards of 70 biotech firms in Ireland, although most are still small concerns that have not yet come on the international radar. "That would probably characterise the majority of them," Roben says. Exceptions include Opsona Therapeutics, an immunology drug development start-up that raised €6.5 million in first round funding last year, and a mini-cluster of specialty pharma companies established by former executives at Dublin-based Elan, including Azur Pharma, which raised €40 million in 2005, and AGI Therapeutics.
EI Bio manages a portfolio of around 100 university-based research projects, which have received a combined €23 million in funding. From this base, it brokered eight licensing deals and assisted in the formation of two university spin-outs last year. This year, his organisation is investing €2 million in the development of an industry-led research network which is intended to foster closer connections between industry and academia. "We feel we now have enough of a bedrock in biotechnology in this country to do that," Roben says.
Roben’s unit will also attempt to increase the pace of its deal-making. But Ireland's fledgling biotechnology sector is hitting the same kind of blockages that beset the industry in most other parts of Europe: lack of finance and lack of experienced management. "We don't have enough people here who know how to build companies," Roben says. Enterprise Ireland's ability to find creative routes around these obstacles will have a strong influence on the sector's next stage of development.
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