AbbVie will soon own Allergan’s prized Botox franchise, and along with its roughly $4 billion in sales, it will lay claim to a new $176 million plant at the site in Ireland where the blockbuster is exclusively produced.
Allergan today officially opened the €160m biologics 2 facility, adding 63 jobs to its Westport Campus in County Mayo, Ireland. Looking beyond Botox, the project includes a new microbiology and cell-based laboratory and investments in its eye products manufacturing facilities at Westport,
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“Our Westport campus is the largest and most complex in Allergan's global network,” Paul Coffey, VP of global manufacturing (eyecare and biologics) and site lead at Allergan Westport, said in a statement. “Our new biologics facility, added to our existing biologics facility, will allow us to meet continued global demand for Allergans flagship products.”
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Allergan has four manufacturing facilities in Ireland and 2,000 employees there. In fact, it says 1 in 10 of its workforce is in the country.
The opening of the plant comes just ahead of the expected closing of AbbVie’s $63 billion merger with Dublin-based Allergan. The anticipation is that sales of Allergan products will help offset the loss of revenues from AbbVie’s Humira, the worlds’ best-selling product but one which now is having it sales stomped on by biosimilars. Botox turned in about $2.8 billion in sales in the first nine months of 2019 for both cosmetic and medical uses.