Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has announced a €400 million investment in a new biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility at its plant in Kinsale, Co Cork.
The investment, which is supported by IDA Ireland, will see the creation of up to 200 jobs over the next five years.
Eli Lilly has been making the ingredients for treatments for schizophrenia and osteoporosis at its plant at Dunderrow outside Kinsale for the past 25 years.
It currently employs some 400 people.
Widely welcomed locally, the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, said today's announcement was hugely significant and underscored Ireland's position as the number one location for major biopharmaceutical activity outside the US.
According to the company, the Irish plant won out against stiff competition from the company's other operations worldwide and it will be the first time in Ireland that traditional drugs are manufactured on the same site as biopharmaceuticals.
The new facility will produce medicines to treat illnesses including cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
Construction is expected to get under way in late 2007, with full manufacturing up and running by 2010.
