Up to 250 jobs will be created at the PPD pharmaceutical company, which opened a new drug testing laboratory in Athlone in Co Westmeath today. 50 of those jobs are now coming on line.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen today formally opened the new facility, which sees PPD investing up to €14m in the new facility which is supported by IDA Ireland.
The Athlone facility will continue the co-ordination of clinical trials for some of the world's top drug manufacturers.
The North Carolina pharma company PPD announced plans to open a new analytical testing laboratory in the IDA's Garrycastle Business and Technology Park in Athlone over 14 months ago.
The company has already recruited lab support staff from graduate pools at Athlone IT and will add the remaining jobs over the next four years in a facility that will conduct testing for clinical and commercial drug development.
Today's opening is timely after last Friday's announcement of the closure of Postbank, which employed 260 workers - many of them based at a customer contact centre in Westmeath.
Capita staff face redundancy
In negative jobs news, almost 100 life and pensions workers in Belfast face losing their jobs, it was announced today.
A total of 84 posts are to be axed at Capita's offices in Clarendon Dock. The company blamed the recession, saying people were cashing in their life and pensions policies and not taking out new ones.
'We had some success in attracting very small amounts of work but just not the volume we need to maintain the site at its current levels,' a spokeswoman said.
