A PURPOSE-BUILT €57 million research and training centre has opened with a goal to service the needs of the already large and growing pharmachem industry here.
The building is the new headquarters for the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (Nibrt). It was wholly funded by the Government via IDA Ireland and was the only facility of its kind anywhere in the world, according to the institute’s interim director, Prof Ian Marison.
Nibrt was established five years ago as a limited company set up specifically to service the research and training needs of companies involved in the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. These are human and animal medicines produced using genetically engineered bacteria, with insulin a common example.
Based on University College Dublin’s Belfield campus, it is a collaborative centre involving four academic partners: UCD, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University and Institute of Technology Sligo.
It was an investment that would underpin the pharmaceutical industry here by backing collaboration between these companies and academic partners, Minister of State for Research and Innovation Seán Sherlock said at yesterday’s official opening.
The new 65,000sq m headquarters would push Nibrt’s activities on to a new level, Prof Marison said. “This is a total commitment to underpin the pharmaceutical industries that are already here but also attract fresh inward investment.”
Nibrt was part of the reason that Amgen came to Ireland, he said. “We were very much involved in that.”
It has a core research, training and administrative staff of 52, but temporary research clusters can be assembled to tackle specific bioprocessing research issues that arise.
“We identify the problem and put a group of people together and assemble a research group to solve the problem. Ninety per cent of our work will be funded this way by industry,” Prof Marison said.
“We have to become self financing. As a result I have to become fully self funded within two years,” he said.
The general life sciences sector has become extremely important to the Irish economy. More than 47,000 people here are employed in indigenous and multinational companies involved in pharmachem, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics.
Total exports for the sector exceeded €46 billion in 2010, with 42 per cent of total exports from Ireland, according to Nibrt.
Ireland has become the second largest development and manufacturing location in the world for biopharmaceuticals after the US, said IDA Ireland chief executive Barry O’Leary.
“The establishment of Nibrt will further improve Ireland’s value proposition in attracting further biopharmaceutical investment to Ireland,” he said.
