Aspen, a listed South African pharmaceuticals company that employs about 60 staff in Dublin, today announced it is to boost its Irish workforce to 100.

The company, which operates a quality assurance and research centre in Citywest, said it will add 42 new "high quality" jobs. Aspen, which makes HIV drugs for its home market and supplies branded and generic products to 150 countries worldwide, originally set up in Ireland in 2010 with a small supply chain management team.

It added another 44 staff to this in 2012, when it opened the quality centre at Citywest.

Today's announcement was made by Richard Bruton, the Minister for Enterprise, who said the expansion was being "supported" by the IDA and his department.