Specialist construction group Doosan Babcock has secured a £25 million contract to build new manufacturing facilities at pharmaceutical giant GSK’s Angus base.
The investment in the new Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) plant was first announced in November 2013 during a meeting between Finance Secretary John Swinney and Roger Connor, GSK’s president of global manufacturing and supply.
A full planning application was approved by Angus councillors two months ago, and construction work has already begun.
Around 40 Doosan Babcock engineers are currently engaged in delivery of the project. The new complex, which will create around 25 new jobs once complete, is due to be fully operational by next summer.
The facility will support the production of active ingredients for three new GSK medicines for the management of respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
GSK’s existing Montrose operation, which was seen as being under threat of closure just a few years ago, produces medicines capable of treating more than 20 million patients every day.
Andrew Hunt, chief executive officer of Doosan Babcock, said he was delighted to be involved in such an important project.
The contract award follows a £6m investment by the firm, which also has strong links with the petrochemical plant at Grangemouth, in a new state-of-the-art process engineering centre at Renfrew.
Mr Hunt said: “This is a milestone contract for Doosan Babcock, and it is great to see that our major investment and ongoing work in Scotland’s pharmaceutical sector is being noticed.
“We are proud to be working with GSK on a project that will offer a major boost to the local economy, bring jobs to the region, and ultimately provide essential healthcare products for millions of people,” he added.
The new three-storey API building, which will stand on a 30m by 30m base and will be 16m tall at its highest point, will have the capability of producing up to 1,500kg of products each year, and its work will support that of a sister site in Singapore.