Regeneron, an US pharmaceutical company is all set to enhance its production of a Covid-19 drug in Limerick. The firm opens around 400 job opportunities at its facility.
Regeneron is planning to maximize the production of a developing drug against Covid-19. The factory in Limerick, will be in charge of this process and thus, the firm is planning to recruit workers here.
The firm already have a facility in Raheen Business Park and this is functioning since 2014, for this facility the firm has invested over $1 billion and employed nearly 1,000 people there.
For the latest jobs, the recruitments had already begun at various levels. The firm say that it will also support the production and manufacturing of the existing medicines also.
Currently, it is not completely sure whether the Limerick facility will be charged with the production of the latest drug for Covid-19, but the firm says that the Irish plant will take on the production of other drugs, which is moved from its New York Factory.
The company is also looking forward to enhance the capability and maximizing the production at it’s New York facility too.
The executive vice president Dan Van Plew said that “As this pandemic hit, we needed to quickly change how we do things and where we make our products,”
“In order to make space in our New York facilities to accommodate our Covid-19 efforts, we needed to ramp-up capacity here in Limerick. Despite ramping up commercial production sooner than planned, my team hasn’t missed a beat. You can only perform like this if you have good people, and Ireland has lots of good people, so we are excited to be hiring 400 more.” He said.
The scientists at the Regeneron, designed a drug with the combination of two antibodies, which could prevent the Coronavirus.
The medicine is being tested on humans during clinical trials of the Covid-19 treatment. If the medicine becomes a success, the company will start distributing it the United States. The Swiss pharmaceutical company, Roche will be distributing the product in the rest of the world.
The job announcement was done on the presence of Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar. In that occasion both Martin and Varadkar spoke about the new project and the offer. Varadkar said that the firm and its offer has come to Ireland in a very tough time and it is a good thing to happen at this time.