Boston Scientific is banking on the luck of the Irish to help expand its sustainable manufacturing efforts.
In keeping with a pledge to achieve carbon neutrality in all of its manufacturing and key distribution sites by 2030, the medtech giant’s plans to pour millions of euros into its longtime presence in Galway, Ireland, will see a major expansion to its manufacturing facility there powered by renewable energy.
In total, Boston Scientific will invest 100 million euros, or about $108 million, into the facility, which is located in the townland of Ballybrit on the outskirts of the city of Galway.
According to an announcement about the investment by Ireland’s Industrial Development Agency, the U.S.-based company has maintained a Galway location for nearly three decades. The facility currently performs product design, R&D and manufacturing services and is responsible for exporting more than 4 million heart stents, vascular balloons and other medical devices each year.
The 100 million euro expansion will add more than 40,000 square feet of medical device manufacturing space to Boston Scientific’s Galway footprint, all made carbon-neutral through a reliance on renewable energy sources.
With the added space, the company is expecting to be able to create at least 300 new jobs in the area. The facility expansion will cater to those new additions, with amenities including an on-site gym and new meeting spaces. These may also have a hand in persuading Boston Scientific’s many hybrid workers in the area to continue commuting or return to the office for in-person work.
The latest addition to the Galway location follows a 60 million euro investment in mid-2019. At the time, Boston Scientific heralded the opening of a new facility at the Ballybrit site that was expected to employ more than 250 people by the end of that year.
Outside of Galway, the company maintains Irish manufacturing plants in the town of Clonmel and the city of Cork, after first branching into the country in 1994. Across all three of its locations there, it employs more than 6,500 people, according to Martin Shanahan, CEO of the country’s Industrial Development Agency.
That makes it the “largest life sciences employer in Ireland,” per Shanhan, who added, “Today, Ireland has the highest per capita number of people employed in the European medical device industry.”