West Pharmaceutical confirms it's building $126M facility in Ireland

West CEO Donald Morel Jr.

Pennsylvania-based West Pharmaceutical, the maker of drug container components and drug delivery systems for injectable therapies, confirmed it will build a facility in Waterford, Ireland.

The plant, which the company said would cost in the range of €100 million ($125.7 million) and create about 150 new jobs, will produce packaging components for insulin injector cartridges and other components. The Irish Times first reported negotiations regarding the plant last month.

"With diabetes emerging as one of the fastest growing diseases globally, our pharmaceutical customers are expanding their production line for injectable insulin," Donald Morel Jr., West's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. "To meet this growing demand, we are announcing an expansion today that will help us address this need."

West said work will begin next year at the 44-acre site. If future plans for expansion are realized, the facility could grow to 250 to 300 employees. 

In July, West opened its first site in India that currently produces metal and elastomeric pharmaceutical components for injectable drug packaging. The company plans to expand that plant to include the manufacture of its standard elastomeric components next year and ready-to-sterilize components beginning in 2016.

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