US biopharmaceutical company Theravance Biopharma announced the creation of almost 20 jobs at the official opening of its Dublin headquarters on Wednesday, and indicated plans to expand its presence outside of the capital over the next year.
The company plans to expand its Dublin employee base to 30 with the addition of 18 highly-skilled professionals at its office on Burlington Road over the next 12 months. The jobs will be in areas such as clinical development, finance, and technical operations.
Theravance Biopharma is a diversified biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, California. It manufactures medicines for patients being treated for serious conditions, primarily in the acute care setting.
Speaking after the official opening of its Dublin office on Wednesday, the company's chairman and chief executive Rick Winningham said the expansion was a "first step" for Theravance in the Republic.
“This is our first step here in Ireland,” he said. “It’s an important step but it is our first step in developing operations outside the United States. It’s a terrific and significant milestone for our company.
“Currently we have 12 employees. We’re soon to have two more and we will add another 16 almost immediately - within the next year - in a variety of functions. They will work synergistically with the people we currently have on the ground in San Francisco.”
In terms of whether the jobs will be filled by the Irish workforce or whether staff would be brought in from the United States, Mr Winningham said: “Many will be from the Irish workforce. We’ll have one or two coming over the States or parts of Europe, but primarily we’re looking for the Irish workforce.
“This location helps me to achieve a vision I’ve had for the company, which are teams working 24/7 at multiple sites around the world to advance our science.”
Mr Winningham said there would be further job creation as the company looks to build laboratories outside Dublin over the next year.
“We will be looking at setting up labs to facilitate what we work on in the United States,” he said. “We’ll be looking to build those labs outside of Dublin. That will involve more jobs but it’s a little early to say what the scale will be.
“This is a strategy for us. There is a strong employment base and strong levels of education here in Ireland. It’s a great business climate so I was very serious in terms of this being the first step. We’ll go far beyond where we are today.”
