IDA Ireland to Exhibit at BIO International Convention at Booth #3147

Business Wire,  June 16, 2008  

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Press kit materials are available online at http://virtualpressoffice.com/kit/IDAIreland

DUBLIN, Ireland -- The life sciences sector in Ireland continues to thrive, both with indigenous and overseas companies. Ireland is now in a leadership position in many key business segments. In bio-pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly joined Schering Plough, Wyeth, Genzyme and Centocor in making Ireland the location of choice outside the US for the development and manufacture of their newest drugs. Continued growth in the medical technologies was evident from recent new investment announcements from Kinetic Concepts Inc., Teleflex Medical and Integra Lifesciences in addition to further investments from Merck, Wyeth, Baxter and Genzyme following key investments in 2006 from Cordis, USCI and Vistakon, among others.

The Government of Ireland established a strategic plan (2006-2013) for the life sciences sector. In addition, a series of long term economic goals have been established to assure that business in Ireland by 2020 will be more knowledge and capital intensive with a higher proportion of service activities while maintaining the focus on specific key high technology manufacturing operations. Ireland is set to establish a leadership role in integrating, managing and leveraging global value chains and as a country with a well spring of innovation, with distinctive prowess in commercializing ideas and in creating new business models.

Through Foreign Direct Investment since the 1960s, Ireland has grown a globally significant Life Sciences industry. In 2006, over 170 companies in Ireland were employing 35,000 people in this field. Together, this generated over $52 billion in exports.

Ireland has secured in excess of $5 billion of investment for projects in the life sciences sector. A number of new initiatives relate to BioPharma (Genzyme, Centocor, Pfizer); establishing new business models (Kellogg, Gilead and Merck); R&D (GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Smith & Nephew, Olympus); and bio-manufacturing (Allergan, Schering Plough and Genzyme).

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