More than 200 jobs are understood to have been lost at a pharmaceutical packaging plant in Dundalk, Co Louth, after Wasdell decided to sell the plant and wind down its operations in the State.
Sinn Féin TD Ruairí Ó Murchú said workers at the Wasdell Group were served notice in two stages over recent weeks amid an expectation that the facility in Dundalk will close on August 30th.
He told RTÉ News, which first reported the development, that he has been in contact with some of the workers since they were informed of the job cuts. Wasdell has been contacted for comment.
A proposed takeover of the Wasdell plant by Millmount Healthcare Limited, trading under the name of its US parent company PCI Pharma Services, was notified to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) in June.
Under the deal, PCI is acquiring Wasdell’s 90,000sq ft pharmaceutical packaging and storage facility and certain related assets – the fixed plant, furniture, tools and equipment present – from Wasdell Europe Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Wasdell Holdings Limited.
However, it is not buying the business that Wasdell operated at the plant, meaning it has not acquired its employees.
The CCPC’s determination document, which concludes that the transaction will not lessen competition, notes that “Wasdell’s operations in the State are in the process of being wound down” and that it decided to sell the facility.
UK-headquartered Wasdell, which operates across multiple sites in Europe, supplies supply-chain services for pharmaceutical products, including over-the-counter drugs, generics and nutraceuticals.
The construction of its pharma packaging, testing and distribution facility at the IDA Dundalk Science and Technology Park in Mullagharlin, Dundalk, was first announced in 2017, with the expectation that it would create 300 jobs over five years. The plant opened in 2019.
The PCI Group is a Philadelphia, US-headquartered contract development and manufacturing business for the pharma industry, operating across 15 locations. It already operates plants in Drogheda, Co Louth, and Stamullen, Co Meath, having acquired Meath-based Millmount in 2017.
Its Irish operations primarily comprise the supply of outsourced packaging services for finished dose pharmaceuticals, clinical trial services and analytical lab services.