Biotechnology Firm Drop Plans for Cork Plant

The world’s largest biotechnology firm, Amgen Inc., has cancelled its $1bn plans for a Cork plant.

The company had planned to have the plant up and running by 2012, two years later than originally scheduled, but have now postponed the building of the manufacturing plant indefinitely.

Amgen was to provide 1100 new jobs in Ireland. The decision to drop the plans will affect a staff of just under 80, 65 of which are based in Co. Cork. Amgen is cutting back on staff worldwide by up to 14%. This includes the closure of one of it’s West Greenwich plants and one of the two plant in Rhode Island.

Mark Sawyer, general manager and vice president of Operations, Amgen Technology Ireland said in a statement that the decision is linked to the “evolving business environment.” They also insisted that it had no reflection on the business environment in Ireland.

"This decision is based purely on developments relating to Amgen’s global business and is in no way reflective of the business environment in Ireland or of the high calibre staff we have hired"