MilliporeSigma (Billerica, Mass.), the U.S. and Canada Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, announces the opening of a €150 million filtration manufacturing facility in Blarney Business Park, Cork, Ireland. The site is the company’s first manufacturing facility designed for climate-neutral operations, marking a key milestone in the company’s ambition to achieve climate neutrality by 2040.
The 3,000-square-meter cleanroom facility will support global demand for critical filtration products used in the manufacturing of vaccines and life-saving therapies, including monoclonal antibodies, and emerging modalities like cell and gene therapies. By localizing these capacities in Europe, the company hopes to reduce cross-border dependencies for their customers.
“Ireland is a leading hub for biopharmaceutical manufacturing and innovation for Europe and globally. By expanding manufacturing in Cork, we reinforce our in-region-for-region manufacturing and supply model, reducing cross-border risks and providing manufacturers with reliable access to critical filtration technologies they need to deliver life-changing therapies”, said Jean-Charles Wirth, CEO MilliporeSigma.
The facility is expected to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2025 and will manufacture filtration devices used in aseptic processing, tangential-flow filtration and virus filtration. These filtration technologies are key components of most bioprocessing templates and are vital to controlling bioburden, streamlining purification and removing viral contaminants. They assure vaccines and therapeutics meet expected purity standards and are safe for administration to patients.
The new site will run on 100% renewable electricity and an innovative heat recovery system, which is estimated to avoid up to 61 metric tons of CO2 equivalents annually. It will also reuse up to 95% of high-purity reverse osmosis water from its filtration manufacturing process.
The Blarney Business Park facility is part of the company’s largest Life Science investment to date. Together with the nearby Carrigtwohill site, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany has committed €440 million to expand membrane and filtration manufacturing in Ireland. These investments are part of the company’s €2 billion Life Science global expansion program, announced in 2020, to meet growing demand for life-saving therapies across Europe, China, and the United States.