Janssen Expands Manufacturing Facility to Meet Growing Needs

Janssen has initiated a multimillion-dollar expansion at the company’s Ringaskiddy, County Cork manufacturing facility in Ireland.  When completed in late 2019, the 19,100 m² addition to the facility is expected to significantly increase Janssen’s global manufacturing capacity of biologic medicines, allowing the company to reinforce its commitment to patients with therapies for multiple myeloma, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn’s disease. 

The Cork facility first opened in 2005 and has been the production site for a selection of Janssen’s biologic treatments in the immunology and oncology spaces.  This construction project will include additions to the existing site infrastructure, development of a new manufacturing building, and expansion of the existing warehouse building, laboratory, and administration buildings. Janssen is also going to increase the capabilities of the onsite wastewater treatment plant to accommodate increased production volume.  The increased scope of the location is intended to create an additional 200 jobs on site.

The ultimate goal of this expansion project is to help the company meet the growing volume of products required to be manufactured – with existing commercial products and new products coming through the development pipeline that will require increased manufacturing capacity.  There are challenges in bringing new forms of treatments to fruition, but they have the promise of being very powerful options for patients.  For that to be the case, however, speed is a key component that Janssen will continue to focus on so that life-saving medicines can get to patients as quickly as possible.  

Janssen, like other companies, is working to bring new therapies to the public in a manner that also allows them to be more reliable, cost effective, and able to treat different disease states that are not currently addressed today.  Those in the pharmaceutical supply chain field are eager to see this evolution take place, and the rate of change is rapid. 

The manufacturing facilities of the future can meet these goals by being designed and operated to be agile to the market demands and be able to react to volume changes much quicker than in the past.  These future facilities will also be required to accommodate innovative technologies, focus on end-to-end solutions, and ensure always that they are focused on sustainable solutions for the patient.  The most important impact is ultimately how these innovations and new technologies can positively affect the patient community.