Around 500 jobs are to be created with the significant expansion of a major global life sciences company in Scotland.
Merck, a German science and technology company, is investing €35 million (£30m) in biosafety testing at its Glasgow and Stirling sites in response to increasing worldwide demand for biosafety testing for drug development and commercialisation.
Biosafety testing is a critical step in the drug development and manufacturing process that ensures drugs are safe, efficacious, and meet regulatory requirements.
The expansion will bring Merck’s workforce to over 1,200 employees across the two sites in Scotland.
Dirk Lange, head of life science services at Merck Life Science, said: "We remain committed to ensuring the safety of the world's medicines through our state-of-the-art testing solutions for our customers around the world that drive new treatments.
"Since mid-2022, we have invested more than €350 million in our global testing network to meet the growing demand for these services."
READ MORE: Life sciences giant invests £1m in Glasgow
The centrepiece of the investment is a new, 1,200-square-meter facility in Glasgow, which will house molecular biology and sequencing services.
The company is to expand testing capacity in its current buildings with biosafety testing, analytical development, and viral clearance suites.
The latest investment follows the company’s recent Rockville, Maryland, US, and Shanghai, China testing expansions.
David McClelland, site head and managing director for the Scottish sites, said: “Merck has a wealth of testing expertise spanning over 75 years, including 33 years here in Scotland.
“The biosafety testing services at our sites in Glasgow and Stirling have been experiencing strong, double-digit [percentage] growth for several years.
“This investment is a significant announcement for Merck in Scotland and an acknowledgment of the great work of our on-site teams.”
READ MORE: Scottish drug group lays out flotation strategy
Its contribution to the fight against Covid-19 cut across diagnostics and therapeutics.
The business performs more than 20,000 studies in the UK annually for more than 500 clients globally with its BioReliance testing services portfolio.
Stuart Patrick, chief executive of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said that the announcement "is very good news for Glasgow and the surrounding region".
He also said: "The success of the Merck team in building such a powerful presence in biosafety testing reinforces the growing importance of Glasgow as a hub for science and innovation built on an excellent pipeline of talented new staff.
"The health and life sciences industry will play a central role in shaping opportunities for a high quality career in the city region and Merck is showing how it is done.”
READ MORE: Foreign money feeds Scotland's flourishing life sciences sector
Stuart Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Life Sciences Association, said it is “great news for Scottish life sciences and Scotland as a whole”.
He also said: “We are delighted to continue to support Merck as they expand again in Glasgow and Stirling.
“We will work alongside Merck to ensure they have all the resources they need to deliver a successful project.
"Making sure we have the skilled people to fill these jobs is a priority for us and it is excellent to be working with Glasgow Caledonian University, Stirling University and Forth Valley College, amongst others, to ensure we have students graduating with more than just an appreciation of the world-class regulatory environment they’ll be working in”
BioReliance Contract Testing Services and the recently formed Millipore Services are part of the life science services business unit, which together with the process solutions business is one of Merck's “Big Three” growth drivers. By 2025, these businesses are expected to generate approximately 80% of targeted sales.
Merck is a Germany-founded company operating across life science, healthcare and electronics, with more than 64,000 employees globally.
In 2022, Merck generated sales of €22.2 billion (£19.2bn) in 66 countries.
Its work includes providing products and services that accelerate drug development and manufacturing as well as discovering new ways to treat the “most challenging” diseases.
The company said: “Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck’s technological and scientific advances.
“This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668.”
The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as MilliporeSigma in life science, EMD Serono in healthcare, and EMD Electronics in electronics.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel