Xellia Pharmaceuticals, which specialises in producing medication to treat serious and life-threatening infections, has expanded its Budapest plant with a new building; the 13 million dollar investment will create 80 new, highly qualified workplaces at the facility in Köbánya.
The 3000 square metre building, which will house the company group’s global laboratory services centre, was officially inaugurated on Monday by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and CEO of Xellia Pharmaceuticals Carl-Ake Carlsson in Budapest’s 10th District.
Mr. Szijjártó said it was an economic policy priority for as many high added value workplaces based on research & development to be created in Hungary. “One of the most important ‘’flagships’ o this new economic policy goal is precisely the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry, in view of the fact that the pharmaceutical industry requires continuous research and development, and produced high added value products”, he stressed.
“Previous Hungarian economic policy could be summed up with the phrase ‘Made in Hungary’, but the situation has now changed; Made in Hungary is being replaced by Invented in Hungary, meaning that in future businesses should develop as many products and technologies as possible in Hungary. From this perspective, the pharmaceutical industry plays a leading role in Hungary”, the Minister explained.
“The Hungarian Governments’ target is for 1.8 percent of GDP to be spent on research and development (R&D) by the end of 2020, and for that ratio to increase to 3 percent by 2030”, he added. “For this reason, at the beginning of this year the Government introduced new tax incentives to promote R&D activities, and enterprises operating in Hungary can deduct double the money they spend on research & development from their tax base”, the Minister indicated.
“Xellia is 100 percent owned by Novo A/S, which is part of the Novo Group holding company. The products of this Group of companies enjoys a market share of 50-90 percent worldwide, including the pharmaceuticals produced by Xellia. The newly inaugurated laboratory complex, which includes state-of-the-art microbiology and chemistry analysis laboratories, will perform the final monitoring and testing of all of the Xellia pharmaceuticals produced worldwide. The final decision on the distribution of Xellia’s pharmaceuticals will be made by Hungarian engineers, pharmacologists and microbiologists”, Mr Szijjártó explained.
“There are few problems with relation to Hungarian-Danish relations, as a result of which they are rarely mentioned”, the Minister said, expressing his hope that this will remain the case, and noting that the Danish Foreign Minister will be visiting Hungary next week. “The Danish investment community is strong, as also indicated by the fact that last year bilateral trade flow exceeded 1.2 billion euros, with a further increase of 8 percent in the first five months of this year”, Mr. Szijjártó told the press.
In his welcome speech, CEO of Xellia Pharmaceuticals Carl-Ake Carlsson spoke about the fact that high-level Hungarian professional expertise is of fundamental importance to Xellia, and this was one of the reasons why Budapest was chosen as the site for the company’s new laboratory services centre.
The company is committed to high quality work and product manufacturing, one of the guarantors of which is the excellent knowledge of the company’s Hungarian staff.
The company’s Hungarian subsidiary, Xellia Pharmaceuticals Limited, realised 5.5 billion forints (EUR 18.1 million) in turnover last year, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year. “We are also expecting two-figure growth for this year”, Managing Director Zsolt Németh told Hungarian news agency MTI.
“The company produces active ingredients for pharmaceuticals, two of which play a particularly important role in life-saving hospital treatments. The Danish owner is also considering moving other R&D activities to Hungary. Once the new facility begins operating in November, the number of people working at the company will be almost three hundred”, the Managing Director said.
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/MTI)
