Big pharma firm to bring Laois jobs boost

A MAJOR pharmaceutical company is on its way to Laois, bringing a welcome jobs boost for the county.

BNL Sciences Ltd, which is part of international pharma firm Caldic, plans to construct a new plant at the J17 National Enterprise Park in Portlaoise.

Established in 2003, BNL Sciences is one of the leading distributors of high purity chemicals to the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland and is part of a strong global operation.

At their monthly meeting today, councillors approved the sale of a 3.71 hectare serviced site for €1.4m at the park in Togher, which was developed by Laois Co Council.

The move was hailed as ‘a very good business day for Laois’, as the company is expected to bring a range of skilled jobs when it begins operations, as well as during the construction phase.

Cllr James Kelly said there is too often bad news when it comes to economic development in the county, as he described the sale of the land as “a good news day”. He commented that Laois had been let down too many times by state agencies regarding economic development.

He said: “The message has to go out that Laois is open for business.” 

Cllr John King welcomed the sale as “a very good business day for Laois”, adding that former county council chief executive John Mulholland deserved thanks for “his steel and vision to acquire the land”.

Cllr Ben Brennan said: “It’s just not about the sale of the land but of the amount of jobs it will create and the spin-off”.

Cllr Paschal McEvoy observed: “The best investment this council ever made was the purchasing of that land bank. Whoever negotiated the sale of the land got a fair price. There will be a good number of jobs created out there.” 

Chief executive officer Michael Rainey said that, for too long, Laois had lagged behind when it came to economic and job development. He said that businesses that want to grow should look at Laois to invest in.

The sale of the land was formally proposed by Cllr John Joe Fennelly, seconded by Cllr Paddy Buggy. No details of jobs numbers during construction or on completion were provided during the meeting.

Based at the M7 Business Park in Naas, Co Kildare, BNL Sciences was acquired in 2020 by Caldic BV, a leading distribution partner for the global chemical and food industry.

BNL Sciences describes its role as providing ‘custom-made solutions and high purity specialty chemicals, excipients and biological raw materials to the (bio)pharmaceutical, medical devices and material markets’. The company offers alcohol products, laboratory chemicals, chromatography products, microelectronic chemicals and biopharmaceutical products.

BNL Sciences will join a range of other large companies at the J17 National Enterprise Park beside the M7 motorway, including Midland Steel, Laprino Cheese, Aubren, Alpha Drives and Kirby Engineering. Midland Steel recently expanded to the park from their Mountmellick base, creating up to 70 new jobs.

At the local authority meeting, other councillors also saluted the foresight of Mr Mulholland in purchasing the land bank from Supermac’s founder Pat McDonagh in 2017, in order to develop the J17 park.

A master plan for the park was produced by Laois County Council in 2018 and most of the serviced sites have been sold.