GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) has been beefing up its facilities on its home turf lately, including at the company's Worthing, Sussex, site. Now, there are some specifics about the level of investment in that project.
According to the Shoreham Herald, the site will receive £120 million (about $200 million) of the £200 million ($330 million) Glaxo allotted in December for local upgrades. That money will go toward a bulk sterile building and a filling line to produce the pharma giant's top-selling antibiotic, Augmentin; the new line should cut down on both costs and manufacturing times, improving quality in the process.
"Ever since I can remember, there has been a question mark over the GSK production facility," Worthing Borough Council leader Paul Yallop told the Herald. "If it gets planning permission, it will secure the future for the employees."
The other part of the announced project is to build a new plant at its Ware, Hertfordshire, complex to make its new-generation Relvar Ellipta inhaler, which it developed elsewhere at the complex. Sold in the U.S. under the Breo brand, the treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was approved by the FDA in May and in Europe last month. It is forecast to reach $1.3 billion in peak sales.
Last year, the company laid out plans to invest more than £500 million ($790 million) in U.K. manufacturing projects, creating 1,000 jobs. Two manufacturing sites in Scotland were earmarked for upgrades, but the centerpiece of the investment is a new plant in Ulverston, Cumbria. It is GSK's first new facility in the U.K. in four decades. The company credited a special tax break the U.K. put in place last year as the impetus for building there. With the new plans, its investment in new manufacturing and upgrades in the U.K. now totals about $1.15 billion.
- read the Shoreham Herald story