The area of Ire­land fa­mous for Blar­ney Cas­tle and its cliff­sides along the At­lantic Ocean is see­ing Mer­ck KGaA ex­pand its com­mit­ment there.

The Ger­man drug man­u­fac­tur­er is ex­pand­ing its mem­brane and fil­tra­tion man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties in Ire­land. The com­pa­ny will in­vest ap­prox­i­mate­ly €440 mil­lion ($470 mil­lion) to in­crease mem­brane man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty in Car­rigt­wohill, Ire­land, and build a new man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty at Blar­ney Busi­ness Park, in Coun­ty Cork, Ire­land.

The in­vest­ment, which is the largest in a sin­gle site ever for the life sci­ence side of Mer­ck KGaA, will aim to cre­ate more than 370 per­ma­nent jobs by the end of 2027.

“This €440 mil­lion ex­pan­sion of our Cork site, to­geth­er with oth­er ma­jor in­vest­ments world­wide, will fur­ther en­hance the val­ue that Mer­ck KGaA can de­liv­er to cus­tomers through­out the de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion of their spe­cial­ized med­i­cines, vac­cines and di­ag­nos­tics,” said Belén Gar­i­jo, chair of the ex­ec­u­tive board and CEO of Mer­ck KGaA.

At the Blar­ney Busi­ness Park, Mer­ck KGaA will con­struct a new fil­tra­tion man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty for a price tag of €150 mil­lion. Once ful­ly op­er­a­tional, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, it will in­crease the com­pa­ny’s glob­al man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pac­i­ty and sup­ply cus­tomers pro­duc­ing both tra­di­tion­al and new treat­ments and ther­a­peu­tics.

For their ex­pan­sion in Car­rigt­wohill, the com­pa­ny will be look­ing at €290 mil­lion to add a man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty for the use of im­mer­sion cast­ing of mem­branes. These mem­branes sup­port nov­el and gene ther­a­pies, as well as ap­pli­ca­tions like virus ster­il­iza­tion.

This comes on the heels of a €36 mil­lion in­vest­ment at the Car­rig­towhill last year for a sec­ond lat­er­al flow mem­brane man­u­fac­tur­ing prod­uct line. Since its open­ing, the fa­cil­i­ty pro­duces lat­er­al flow mem­branes, most fre­quent­ly used in rapid di­ag­nos­tic test­ing for rare dis­eases such as dengue fever, malar­ia and Ebo­la. They are al­so a key com­po­nent in rapid anti­gen tests, which are used for the de­tec­tion of Covid-19.

Over the next five years, mean­while, Mer­ck KGaA said it plans to make more in­vest­ments world­wide, in­clud­ing in Ger­many, Chi­na, France, Switzer­land, Ire­land and the US.

Ear­li­er this year, af­ter the Darm­stadt-based com­pa­ny re­or­ga­nized its CD­MO and con­tract test­ing unit around the $780 mil­lion buy­out of LNP play­er Ex­e­lead, af­ter which it rolled out plans to in­vest more than a half-bil­lion dol­lars in the new ops to build up their mR­NA of­fer­ings. The in­vest­ment — slat­ed to take 10 years — will en­sure that its cus­tomers have com­pre­hen­sive CD­MO ser­vices across the mR­NA sup­ply chain.

Earlier this year, Novartis touted its radioligand as a major piece to counter competition in the cancer space. However, the physical production of its products has had anything but a smooth ride.

In May, Novartis had to suspend production of Lutathera and Pluvicto, its two primary radiotherapies. According to the company, this was done out of an abundance of caution as a result of potential quality issues identified in its manufacturing. The production suspension impacts the commercial and clinical trial supply of the products.

Lonza has been expanding its reach across the globe, bringing sites in China and the US online this year, but now they are looking closer to home for their next major investment.

The Swiss manufacturer on Friday announced plans to construct a large-scale commercial drug fill and finish facility in the town of Stein, Switzerland. The new facility will be delivered through an investment of approximately CHF 500 million, or $519 million, and is expected to be completed in 2026. The facility will also be constructed on the same campus as Lonza’s current clinical drug product facility.

Two weeks ago, Biohaven hit an all-time high in weekly Nurtec prescriptions. CEO Vlad Coric attributes at least some of that success to a new interactive Twitter campaign that encourages patients to free their feed of potential migraine triggers.

Earlier this month, Biohaven in partnership with Twitter launched the #RelieveYourFeed campaign that allows users to customize their app settings based on their migraine triggers.

Over the past few months, oncologists have been talking a lot about the ASCO conference. Not surprising considering its import and the study data presented, but what may be less expected is the second most talked about topic of health equity.

That’s according to data from The Harris Poll and the new expert network the researcher is building out. While the company has been doing deep data dives into specific health issues or conditions for pharma clients, it’s now monitoring influencer networks of therapy area specialists to find out what experts are really thinking about.