JobsFair.ie

Serious concerns are mounting for the future of 200 top-end pharmaceutical jobs after US giant Pfizer said advanced talks to sell one of its major plants had collapsed.

Company bosses yesterday broke the news to employees at its Little Island facility in Cork that plans to sell the high-tech plant to an unnamed firm had broken down.

The blow came after the US pharmaceutical giant confirmed 17 months ago that it was axing two production plants and shedding up to 545 Irish jobs as part of a worldwide review of its operations.

Pfizer warned it had no option but to reduce production at its Irish plants after a new product, Torcetrapib, was withdrawn from clinical trials in the US because of worries over patient safety.

Invested

Pfizer had invested more than $1bn (€0.63bn) in the new anti-cholesterol drug -- and it had been earmarked as the most important manufacturing product for Pfizer Ireland over the next decade.

Disastrously for Cork, Torcetrapib had been expected to take up 40pc of total manufacturing capacity at Pfizer's Ringaskiddy, Loughbeg and Little Island plants.

The drug that Torcetrapib had been earmarked to replace, Lipitor, currently earns a staggering $12bn per annum for the US firm.

After the drug's withdrawal, Pfizer announced a 10pc reduction of its global workforce -- and began slashing the number of its production sites around the world from 100 to just 50. Pfizer has been working to reduce its Irish workforce from 2,300 to about 1,750.

Collapse

Senior Pfizer officials confirmed last year that, by 2009, the workers at both the Loughbeg and Little Island plants would no longer be Pfizer employees.

The company had hoped to sell the facilities as "going concerns" -- warning that job losses were only "a last resort".

However, the collapse of the plant sale negotiations has brought the prospect of 200 job losses in Little Island closer.

Meanwhile, Waterford Stanley, the traditional range cooker maker, is bracing itself for further job losses, after its parent company in England said it would "rationalize its operations in Ireland".

Aga Foodservice Group, who own Aga, Rayburn, Rangemaster and Waterford Stanley, said the decision came as a result of a fall in Irish consumer demand.

The focus of the rationalization will be the manufacturing plant in Waterford.

The Waterford factory has already had to accommodate 13 voluntary redundancies and put half its 150 workforce on a three-day working week late in April.

Ralph Riegel and Colin Bartley