The largest portion of the investment is a £20m expansion at the company’s Souderton, Pennsylvania-based headquarters. The money will help expand the existing 240,000-square-foot facility in addition to leasing a 26,000-square-foot office space in nearby Lansdale.
The announcement comes on the heels of the company’s £4.2m expansion at its facility in North Carolina.
“Almac’s continued growth comes as a direct result of the continued drive to both meet and exceed the needs of our customers,” Almac CEO and Chairman Alan Armstrong told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
“Across the companies there is an increased demand for the excellence that Almac can provide combined with a focus on the customer, leading to a requirement for growth in employee numbers and also investment in the latest equipment, facilities etc. in order to maintain our competitive edge,” he added.
Armstrong explained the expansion is across a range of Almac’s business units, including clinical services, clinical technologies, pharma services, and sciences.
“The jobs to be created span a wide range of functions including administrative, HR, scientific, management and operations,” he said, adding that this will enable Almac to continue “to provide high quality customer-centric services across all our business units.”
In addition to the £20 million investment in Pennsylvania, the company is also devoting £5m to build additional laboratory and office space at its global headquarters in Craigavon, Northern Ireland. Around 170 existing employees will be transferred to the new building.
Another £2m will help develop the Arran Chemical Company facility in Athlone, Ireland which Alamc was acquired last year.
According to the company, the project enables the upgrade of existing site infrastructure and brings additional manufacturing capacity as well as added distillation and drying capabilities.
Upon completion, the Almac Group expects to increase its global headcount from 4,600 to 5,000 by the end of 2017.