GSK to invest additional £140m at UK manufacturing sites

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is set to invest more than £140m at its production facilities in the UK to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of its manufacturing network.

Slated between this year and 2020, the investment will be made on the company’s Ware, Hertfordshire, Barnard Castle, County Durham and Montrose, Scotland manufacturing sites.

The new investment will be an addition to the £275m confirmed last year and an investment of more than £1.2bn in UK manufacturing since 2012.

With this amount, GSK intends to boost the production of its respiratory and HIV medicines in the UK.

In pharmaceuticals, the company will carry out a strategic review of its cephalosporins antibiotics business, with a provision to divest the business along with the associated manufacturing plants.

The medicines are manufactured at GSK’s production facilities in Ulverston, Cumbria, Verona in Italy and part of its Barnard Castle site.

"We have a substantial manufacturing presence in the UK and continue to support the network with a new investment of more than £140m in the next three years."

Also, the pharmaceutical firm has decided to outsource some of its manufacturing activities at its Worthing site in the UK, but will continue to produce other antibiotics, such as Augmentin, as well as continue research on new antibiotics.

In its Consumer Healthcare business, the company intends to sell its Horlicks brand, along with the associated manufacturing site in Slough, as well as the MaxiNutrition brand in the country.

GSK global manufacturing and supply president Roger Connor said: "We have a substantial manufacturing presence in the UK and continue to support the network with a new investment of more than £140m in the next three years.

"At the same time, we have had to make some decisions which we know will cause uncertainty for some of our employees. We will do all we can to support them through this process."

In total, the firm has approximately 17,000 employees across the UK, 5,000 of which are in manufacturing operations.