As many multinationals move to low-cost locations, life-sciences toolmaker Millipore says it remains committed to Ireland, writes Barry Rochein Cork

MARTIN MADAUS believes investing in Ireland makes perfect sense. At a time when foreign multinationals are moving operations from Ireland to lower-cost economies in Asia and eastern Europe, medical devices firm Millipore seems to be running against the trend.

"For us, it makes sense because we have a strong base here and our products are quite technically demanding. In order to produce them well, you need skilled labour and people who understand what they are doing," says Madaus, a Hamburg native who initially trained and worked as an equine vet, but now heads Millipore, one of the world's leading life-sciences tool companies.

Madaus became chief executive at Millipore in 2005 after stints with Boehringer Mannheim and Roche Diagnostics. In the intervening years, he has engineered four major acquisitions and almost doubled revenues from $883 million (€683 million) in 2004 to $1.6 billion in 2007. In the same period, the workforce has grown from 4,750 to more than 6,000 across 47 countries.

In Ireland recently to open an €85 million unit at the company's plant in Carrigtohill, east Cork, Madaus was both candid and optimistic about the development of the company and its Irish plant.

Established in 1954 in Massachusetts, Millipore opened a manufacturing plant in Carrigtohill in 1988 with an initial staff of 30.

Now, following IDA Ireland-supported investment in a new production unit, the company employs 580 people at the site.

The plant makes filtration devices and plastic membrane films which are used to sterilise drug solutions, test beverages for purity and filter IV fluids in patient care, as well as in other applications in the medical devices, pharmachem and biotechnology sectors.

"The product lines themselves are also diverse, so it's not one large-scale production like in the computer industry where you would outsource - you wouldn't do that here because they're fairly technically challenging and very customised in some ways."

Cork became a "centre of excellence" for Millipore earlier this year and it is proposed to transfer more product lines to the site.

Most of what is manufactured in Cork is exported - often to other factories within the company or sometimes to producers within other sectors. But the key to the company's success is its range, Madaus believes.

"We can sell into diagnostic markets, we can sell to medical markets, we can sell to biotech markets, and that's actually good because you have diversified products and diversified markets," he says.

"You also have complex operations but it levels out the risk so, unlike the pharma company, which depends on maybe two or three products, we have 20,000 products.

"They're not all here, but you have many components and that's a good way, particularly in times when things change."

Identifying Cork as one of the company's two most important manufacturing sites worldwide, Madaus believes the company has achieved sufficient critical mass and is well enough established here to be an attractive employer.

"We have a strategy to retain the best people and also to attract people, so we haven't had any issues with retaining critical talent.

"But we also work at it - it doesn't come by itself but there is a very good talent pool here in Cork and here in Ireland."

While Madaus says Millipore has no plans to set up a research and development facility in Ireland - "we have talked about it but we haven't made any decisions because we already have research centres established" - he remains impressed with Ireland as a place to do business.

"The Irish business environment is attractive - highly skilled labour pool, a stable, committed and flexible workforce and good taxes - it's not any one thing, but it's the combination of all of these that makes it attractive," he says.