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Ireland looking to become gateway to Europe for Indian drug makers post Brexit
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Laxmi Yadav, Mumbai
February 26 , 2019
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With March 29 Brexit deadline approaching fast, Ireland, dominated by
multinational pharma and biotech companies, is looking to become a
gateway to Europe for Indian drug makers looking to expand their
footprint in the region.
Separate regimes may apply in the
European Union and UK post Brexit which provides a huge opportunity for
Ireland to accommodate companies who earlier saw the UK as their gateway
to Europe.
To avoid Brexit impact, companies located in the UK
are setting up base in Ireland. Pharmaceutical companies are also
setting up base in Ireland so that qualified persons can be signed
within EU post Brexit. Drug companies like Almac, WuXi have preferred to
start operations in Ireland over UK in the wake of Brexit, said Martin
Shanahan, CEO, IDA Ireland who recently held meetings with several
Indian drug makers to attract foreign direct investment in life sciences
sector and diffuse Brexit fear.
IDA Ireland is an Irish government organization that promotes FDI into Ireland.
There
is a huge opportunity for Indian life sciences industry to grow in
Ireland which is a stable, competitive, secure and pro-business country.
Brexit will not have any impact on the business environment for foreign
firms in Ireland as the country remains a part of European Union, said
Shanahan.
The strength of Ireland lies in highly educated
population, highly regulated, zero defect manufacturing. 70% of
workforce is non-Irish. The country offers attractive tax regime. Its
corporate tax rate is 12.5%. An R&D tax credit at 25% is available
for all qualifying R&D activity and is calculated on the company
spend net of grant aid, he informed.
Besides this, the country
has pro-enterprise policy wherein IDA provides financial support to
companies setting up plant and offers training to employees of companies
setting up R&D centres.
Several Indian pharmaceutical and
medtech companies have presence in Ireland such as Surat-based
Sahajanand Medical Technologies (SMT) which established its European
headquarters in 2016, with a state-of-the-art research, development and
innovation centre in Galway.
Besides SMT, Transasia Bio-Medicals,
Wockhardt, Reliance Life Sciences, Unichem Laboratories, animal health
company- Alivira and Intas Pharmaceuticals have operations in Ireland.
Intas through its wholly owned subsidiary Accord Healthcare, acquired
Actavis UK and Actavis Ireland from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd
for £603 million payable in cash. Actavis UK & Ireland focuses on
providing high quality generics products to pharmacies and wholesalers
in the UK and Ireland through their employee base of over 600 staff.
Besides
generic drug companies, Ireland offers huge growth opportunities to
biotech firms. It has invested heavily in R&D to support the
biopharma industry. The National Institute for Bioprocess Research and
Training (NIBRT) is engaged in skilling workforce employed in biopharma
industry. Last year it gave practical training to 5,000 people from
various biopharma firms.
Some of the leading biotech drugs
manufacturers in Ireland include Keytruda (MSD), Enbrel (Pfizer),
Prevnar 13 vaccine (Pfizer), Stelara (Janssen) & Simponi (Janssen).
Multinational companies in Ireland are working on next generation
therapies like bispecific antibodies, antibody drug conjugate (ADCS),
gene therapy, cell therapy.
The country has witnessed a
ten-billion foreign investment in biologics over last ten years. Last
year it had exported pharmaceuticals worth 65 billion euro.
There
are 83 pharmaceutical manufacturing units in Ireland. Of them, 43 are
US FDA approved. The pharmaceutical industry in Ireland has also had a
strong record of quality and regulatory excellence. An analysis of 10
years (2005 to 2015) shows low to nil level of warning letters from
USFDA for the Irish pharmaceutical site. No specific trend was observed,
said IDA Ireland CEO.
Ireland also has a strong presence of
medtech companies. It has Centre for Research in Medical Devices to help
medtech firms bring innovation. Injectable devices that are used all
over the world is majorly manufactured in Ireland. Ventilators, contact
lenses etc are also produced to meet global supplies. 80% of global
stent production is carried out in Ireland. 75% of global orthopaedic
knee production comes out of Ireland, said Shanahan.
There are
thriving clusters across the country in sectors such as medical
technology, pharmaceuticals, financial services and internet technology.
One third of MNCs in Ireland have had operations in the country for
over 20 years, illustrating the longevity, resilience and commitment of
MNCs to Ireland, he opined.
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