SECTION 4 Sunday Independent July 21 2013

Regeneron infinal talks totake overDell’sIrish facility

Finance boss refuses to comment onrevelations arising from Anglo Tapes

Biopharmaceutical company to create hundredsof jobs inmassive boost for themid-west regionTOM LYONS

REGENERON Pharmaceuti-cals, a company valued at$26bn (€19.7bn) on the Nas-daq, is in final negotiations totake over the formermanufac-turing facility of Dell in Lim-erick.The biopharmaceutical

firm is preparing to investseveral hundred million inLimerick and create hundredsof jobs in a massive boost forthe mid-west.The areawas shell-shocked

in January 2009 when Delllet 1,900 manufacturing jobsgowhen it shifted productionto lower-cost Poland.Thousands more jobs in

contracting firms involved insupplying and shipping equip-ment for Dell were subse-quently lost.Talks between Regeneron

andDell about buying itsmas-sive plant in Raheen, Co Lim-erick, are understood to beclose to a positive conclusion.In a statement the compa-

ny said: “Regeneron Pharma-ceuticals has reached a pre-liminary agreementwithDellto acquire a 400,000 squarefoot facility in Limerick.“Subject to definitive agree-

ments and permitting, Regen-eron intends to renovate thefacility to accommodate and

support growth,” he added.Headquartered in Tarry-

town in New York state,Regeneron invents, developsand makes medicines forthe treatment of seriousmed-ical conditions including can-cer, eye diseases and asthma.The company was found-

ed in 1988 by its chief execu-tive Leonard S Schleifer, whois a former assistant professorat the Cornell UniversityMed-ical College in the Depart-ments of Neurology andNeu-robiology.Schleifer and his manage-

ment team are expected to

invest over €200m in Irelandin what will be one of thebiggest single investments inIreland this year.The biopharma giant's deci-

sion to invest in Irelandwouldbe a major win for the IDA.The State inward investmentagency has made finding areplacement occupier forDell's large manufacturingfacility one of its priorities.Dell continues to be a big

employer in Limerick despiteending its manufacturingoperations. It employs 1,100people, including 100 morestaff it added in July 2011.

Lazard Capital Marketsanalyst Joshua Schimmer ear-lier this month upgradedRegeneron, the maker of thebestselling Eylea eye drug, to“buy” from “neutral”.Schimmer said Eylea was,

in his opinion, well positionedto continue beating salesexpectations and that it facedlittle competition after Aller-gan's rival drug was delayed.Regeneron reports its sec-

ond quarter 2013 financialand operating results onAugust 6 when it may deliveran update on Limerick.Ireland is one of theworld's

best locations for pharma andbiopharmaceutical firmswhich have formed one of theplanks underpinning Ireland'srecovery.In an interview on July 12,

IDA chief Barry O'Leary said:“There are currently ninepharmaceutical firms in Ire-land, eachwith investments ofover €77m under way.”Among these are Pfizer

which is investing another€100m across its sites atGrange Castle in west DublinandRingaskiddy in Cork, tak-ing its total investment here toover $7bn since 1970.Merck has just completed a

$300mvaccines facility inCar-low and Amgen, Sanofi andAbbott are also all currentlyexpanding their plants.

ROISIN BURKE

THEDepartment of Finance'smost powerful mandarin dis-missed the Anglo Tapes byphysically turning his backand refusing to comment ontheir explosive revelations.“I'm trying to do something

that's important for Irelandright now,” John Moran said,when asked for his view dur-ing the launch of a new taxefficient investment fund forrich people.

Outside the Irish StockExchange building before thelaunch of the newGreenREITfund, we had already politelyasked the Finance mandarinand former juice bar owner tocomment. He turned on hisheels and walked away with-out a word.He then galloped up the

steps of the exchange at thespeed of a man who surely isno stranger to a StairMaster.A little later inside, we tried

again. “Sorry John, youwalkedaway while I was in mid-sen-

tence back there. Could I askfor your view on the AngloTape revelations?”“No, not right now.”Okay, perhaps we can talk

afterwards, we suggested?“I'm trying to do something

that's important for Irelandright now,” he shot back, turn-ing away.But surely having a view on

this is important, we suggest-ed. “We give our view all thetime,” he said, though in factinformation from the depart-ment on events around the

banking crisis has been sparse.We also asked Mr Moran

for an update on his commit-mentmonths ago to considerreleasing 55 “key documents”related to the events aroundthe banking crisis that pau-pered the country.“Well, we're working on

that,” he barked, whilemovingswiftly down the steps of thestock exchange building, witha grey-suited departmentalapparatchik gently directedthe Sunday Independent outof the way.

Dragon’s company backing bid fornationwide city bike-share contractROISIN BURKE

DRAGONS’DENdenizen SeanO'Sullivan's SOSVentures is aninvestor in a company tender-ing for a major contract torun a city bike service in Cork,Limerick and Galway.Social Bikes, a New York

outfit, has teamed up withEgis Projects Ireland, theFrench transport manage-ment company that runsDublin Port Tunnel and theEasytrip toll tag service and isapplying for the early stagetender process.

Social Bikes runs bike-shareschemes in several locations inthe US including New Yorkstate, New Jersey, Florida andSan Francisco.“The National Transport

Authority is smart for trying toencourage bike-sharing in var-ious cities around Ireland,”said O'Sullivan, welcomingthe plan, which is to be anational rollout of the hugelypopular Dublin Bikes scheme.First “prequalification”

applications are due in by nextTuesday and a final decision islikely to bemade by the end ofthe year.

The plan is to introduce aDublin Bikes-type scheme inIreland's other major citiesand perhaps more widelylater on. How it will functioncommercially still has to bedecided — but it may be inpartnershipwith local author-ities, through either a servicefee or a profit share, and pos-siblywith a corporate sponsor-ship element.SOSVentures is O'Sullivan's

Cork-based investment man-agement firm, which backsmainly technology ventures,six of which have listed on theNasdaq or NYSE.

RTE Twosees 8.5pcof viewerstune outLOUISE McBRIDE

RTE'S bosses will no doubt behoping that the award-win-ning crimedrama, ‘Love/Hate’,will boost viewership figuresfor RTE Two this summer.RTE Two has lost about 8.5

per cent of its viewers overthe last year, according toTAM Ireland, whichmeasurestelevision audiences here. Inthe first week of July this year,RTE Two had a 7.25 per centshare of TV viewers – downfrom 7.92 per cent in the firstweek of July 2012.AlthoughRTEOne has also

seen its viewership figures fallslightly, the number of peopletuning into RTEOne + 1 is upabout 60 per cent over thelast year, according to TAMIreland.A spokeswoman for RTE

said: “RTE One and Two con-tinue to deliver strong channelshares despite audiences hav-ing more choice than ever.”TV3 has also seen its view-

ership figures dip – with thenumbers tuning into themainTV3 channel down 6 per centin the last year. However, thenumbers tuning into its sisterchannel, 3e, have increasedby more than a third.“Since the digital

switchover, 3e is now avail-able inmore than 90 per centof homes in the country,” saida spokeswoman for TV3.MUST-SEE: Tim Vaughan-Lawlor’s role as Nidge in ‘Love/Hate’ had viewers glued to their TVs

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