West Expands Global Manufacturing Ops

West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. is expanding its global manufacturing operations with a new site in Waterford, Ireland that will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other packaging components. Once operational, the new site could add as many as 150 new jobs and will also support future expansions.
 
Construction is planned to begin in early 2015 on the 44-acre site, which will be a center of excellence for West’s elastomeric sheeting used to package insulin for use in pen injectors. Future plans include additional manufacturing space for the company’s injectable component product lines for injectable and dosage forms. With these expansions, the plant can accommodate between 250 to 300 jobs and an investment of approximately €100 million.
 
“With diabetes emerging as one of the fastest growing diseases globally, our pharmaceutical customers are expanding their production lines for injectable insulin. To meet this growing demand, we are announcing an expansion today that will help us address this need and continue to serve this critical patient population,” said Donald E. Morel, Jr., West’s chairman and chief executive officer. “In the future, we intend for this site to be a center of excellence for advanced packaging components to meet the needs of our customer base for a range of sophisticated injectable therapies.”