Irish firm plans major Montco facility

An Irish pharmaceutical-services company plans to build a North American headquarters on a 40-acre site east of Harleysville in Montgomery County that could add 262 jobs within three years.

The $100 million project was announced yesterday by Almac Group founder Sir Allen McClay and Gov. Rendell.

The Northern Ireland firm's choice of Pennsylvania "confirms our status as a global leader in the biosciences," Rendell said.

The privately held company, based in Craigavon, County Armagh, will receive about $9 million in state funding, including about $6 million in grants, a $2 million low-interest loan, and almost $900,000 in job-training funds and tax credits.

McClay, in Harleysville yesterday for the announcement with Rendell, said Pennsylvania was his choice because "it's quite a center for pharmaceuticals."

McClay, 75, cited the life-sciences talent available in the region. "We've come here not just for the money. The money is very good, but for the people. We find in Pennsylvania very good, high-caliber people. To get that is very important."

McClay, Almac's sole shareholder, had previously founded an Irish pharmaceutical company, called Galen Holdings, in 1968. After retiring from Galen, he bought four Galen business divisions in 2001 to form Almac. (Galen, which bought U.S. pharmaceutical company, Warner Chilcott in 2000, eventually took that company's name.)

Almac bought 40 of the 65 acres owned by a farmer, Sam Kriebel, whose family has owned the farm in Lower Salford Township since 1753.

Under its current plan, after Almac builds the headquarters, it will consolidate existing operations, and 495 jobs, now in Audubon, Montgomery County, and Yardley, Bucks County.

Almac's expansion will be in several phases. Initially, the company will combine its Audubon and Yardley divisions in a new 240,000-square-foot building.

Construction will begin next year. The building is expected to be fully operating by 2010, officials said.

Almac said it anticipated future expansion at the headquarters would create more than 400 jobs by 2013.

The 262 new jobs planned to be added within the next three years will include software-development and laboratory specialists.

Almac has been a "corporate neighbor" for more than 15 years and "we are delighted they are expanding here in Montgomery County," Carmen Italia, president of the Montgomery County Industrial Development Corp., said.

Almac employs 2,000 in Europe and the United States and has five business divisions, two of them - pharma and clinical services, and clinical technologies - in the Philadelphia area.

Almac, with $750 million in revenue, aims to be a "one-stop shop" for drug-development services - everything from discovery, commercialization, manufacturing and production, to clinical trials.

The company said it provided services to more than 600 major pharmaceutical and small biotech companies worldwide, including Merck & Co. Inc., GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc. and Wyeth. It works in therapeutic areas including cancer, AIDS and cardiovascular disease.

Rendell, who announced the state financial package yesterday, said: "For us, as a commonwealth, it's a terrific result. They decided they wanted to grow and consolidate in one location. There isn't a state in the Northeast that wouldn't give their right arm for a company like Almac."