Mayo pharmaceutical giants to stay put after omission from letter warning of investment ‘exodus’

THREE of the biggest employers in Mayo did not sign a letter to the EU warning of an ‘exodus’ of future investment, The Mayo News has learned.

The heads of 30 large pharmaceutical companies wrote to the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, warning that the sector was facing ‘a crisis’ amid the imposition of new tariffs on EU goods.

Concern had been expressed for the future of AbbVie, Vantive (formerly Baxter) and Hollister in Mayo before US President Donald Trump announced a raft of tariffs on EU goods. Pharmaceutical goods were excluded by the blanket 10 percent tariffs imposed by the new US President following the so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcement.

The three aforementioned companies, which employ over 3,000 people in Mayo, were not among the signatories to the letter to Ms von der Leyen, which was sent on April 11. Demanding policy change from the EU on pharmaceutical goods, the letter warned that the companies could ‘accelerate’ decisions to pause investment in Europe and that they may divert future investment to ‘the US or other fast-growing economies’.

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Over 1,300 people are employed in AbbVie in Westport. Originally known as Allergan, it Westport plant has operated since 1977 and is now one of the world’s leading manufacturers of Botox.

More than 1,200 people are employed in Vantive in Castlebar and Swinford, while over 1,000 people are employed in Hollister in Ballina.

The three companies have not commented publicly on whether the impending tariffs will affect their operations in Mayo.

‘Huge percentage’

Local councillor Peter Flynn, a former international director of tax and finance at Allergan (which was purchased by AbbVie for $63 billion in 2020), said ‘a huge percentage’ of the goods produced by AbbVie in Westport are being exported to markets other than the US.

“The vast majority of products out of [AbbVie] Westport will be going to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, into Australia and New Zealand,” Cllr Flynn told The Mayo News yesterday.

“The US would be an important market in terms of the Botox side of things, but in terms of all the other products, a huge percentage would be outside of the US.”

The Fine Gael councillor said the location of multi-national companies was determined by ‘an awful lot more factors other than just simply tax’.

“The biggest markets for these companies are in Europe, because we are part of the EU. The tax piece is important, but the fact that we are part of Europe, and the fact that we have highly-qualified and experienced people working in the multinational sector, is crucial,” Cllr Flynn added.

AbbVie invested €160 million in a second biologics facility on its 61-acre Westport campus, which opened in 2020.

The company sponsors the Mayo Senior Football League and has the naming rights to Westport United’s home ground, AbbVie United Park.

Castlebar-based Independent councillor Harry Barrett said that there was a “threat to our pharmaceutical base here in Mayo, but the advantages we have as a manufacturing base for pharma will take years to replicate in the US.”

Cllr Barrett said the negative repercussions of Trump’s tariffs on the US economy could result in his party losing both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections.

“It’s amazing to think that the long-term outlook for our pharma base in this county is seriously linked to Trump’s electoral fortunes,” Cllr Barrett told The Mayo News.