Craigavon, 04 March 2015 – Secretary of State for Education and Loughborough Nicky Morgan MP and George Freeman MP, Minister for Life Sciences, visited Almac at their new site in Charnwood, Loughborough to meet with senior representatives and learn more of the continuing redevelopment. The Charnwood Campus was formerly owned by Astra Zeneca before their decision to relocate at the end of 2011. The site was subsequently acquired by a local company who have since put plans in place to see it restored to a life sciences hub for the region.
During their meeting, the Ministers were briefed on how Almac, in assuming the role of anchor-tenant on site, is significantly upgrading facilities to provide office and laboratory space, analytical testing, formulation development and small and large scale manufacturing capabilities for the Pharma Services division. The investment required has been projected as over £16 million and will lead to the creation of approximately 180 jobs over the next 5 years. It represents yet further expansion for the Craigavon-headquartered firm, which only last year opened an Asia-Pacific office in Singapore and has plans for further investment and jobs in both its UK and US bases also.
Almac Pharma Services Managing Director, Graeme McBurney commented:
‘We are delighted that the Ministers continue to take great personal interest in both the Charnwood site and wider Almac Group activities. They have been impressed with Almac as a Group and how it has grown organically into the global company that it is today, with over 4,000 employees. Also importantly with the quality and strength of customer base that will now be brought to the area by Almac Pharma Services. We are excited about the potential at the Charnwood site for Almac to continue to grow and meet the increasing demand from our customer base. It offers high quality, bespoke facilities that fully complement our existing pharmaceutical development and analytical laboratories in Craigavon, allowing us to meet future client and industry needs. With contracts signed, detailed planning has been completed and facility re-commissioning and equipment procurement activities have commenced. Additionally recruitment of local management and operational teams has also begun, in line with our projection of being operational by Quarter 1 2017.’
Almac is wholly owned by the McClay Foundation, a charitable trust formed by Sir Allen McClay who passed away in 2010, to protect not only the legacy that he had developed but also the staff and the NI headquarters of the company. Involved in internationally recognised research as well as service based support for the Pharmaceutical industry, Almac continues to grow reporting sales of $1/2bn in the last financial year. Approximately 2,500 of the workforce are based in NI, making them one of the region’s largest private sector employers.
About Almac Group
‘Partnering to Advance Human Health’
The Almac Group is an established contract development and manufacturing organisation that provides an extensive range of integrated services to the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors globally. The services range from R&D, biomarker discovery and development, API manufacture, formulation development, clinical trial supply, IXRS® technology (IVRS/IWRS) through to commercial-scale manufacture.
The international company is a privately owned organisation that has organically grown over 30 years and now employs in excess of 4,000 highly skilled personnel. Almac is headquartered in Craigavon, Northern Ireland with operations in the UK, across the US (Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California) and in Asia (Singapore and Tokyo).
