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30 pharmaceutical companies invest in the Pharma Valley in Tuscany, aiming at logistics and vaccines
18 October, Business Insider Italia
The last one in chronological order is Eli Lilly that signed an agreement for a 100 million euro investment in Sesto Fiorentino. But the list of pharmaceutical companies with facilities in Tuscany is very long.
It’s not by chance that the district between Florence, Lucca, Pisa, and Siena, together with Lazio and Piedmont is the jewel of the Italian pharmaceutics, being Italy the second manufacturer (30 billion per year, second only to Germany) and first for per capita production. In 2015, the Region governed by Enrico Rossi launched the idea to create Pharma Valley which will take shape in 2018 aiming mostly at logistics and vaccine development.
The project is inspired by Biopolis in Singapore. It gathers giants of the pharmaceutical sector such as Gsk, Eli Lilly, Molteni, Menarini, Kedrion, Sebia, Abiogen and it’s aimed at attracting investments, doing high-level research, and creating new jobs, all through the collaboration between companies and regional, national, and European financing.
The Pharma Valley project originates in a fertile terrain where many multinationals set their headquarters, invest and hire personnel (11 thousand new employees in 2017). In the last few days, Eli Lilly, the American multinational present in 130 countries all over the world with 15 production sites and 40 thousand employees – has signed with the Region of Tuscany an agreement for the extension of its hi-tech plant in Sesto Fiorentino to produce insulin, taking in this way the area currently occupied by the high school Enriques Agnoletti which will move to another site.
Menarini too has settled down in Tuscany. It’s the first Italian pharmaceutical company with 17 thousand employees and a turnover of 3.5 billion in 2016. In the last few years, the company has invested a lot to add to the traditional pharmaceuticals the oncologic research, the diagnostic, and the use of new technologies to produce vaccines.
It’s indeed in the vaccines sector, where the British Gsk is also active, where Pharma Valley will make its first steps. The Region of Tuscany assures that the first facilities will be ready by 2018 and they will be designed by multinationals, political authorities, research centres, and Universities of Tuscany cooperating together to find out the best ways to develop the sector.
In Siena will rise the new facility for vaccines research and production which will also have a strategic role in case of national emergency. The project starts from a pre-existing facility and it will get the investments from the Region and the Government to create a hub with public functions.
The second objective for 2018 is the creation of two logistical hubs to serve the pharmaceutical multinationals operating in Tuscany since they’re currently shipping by air from Rome to Milan. In Livorno, it was identified a new platform for sea shipment, while Empoli will accommodate a dispatching hub to receive the raw materials coming from abroad and necessary for production. The Region confirms that the project is proceeding quickly: after having defined the governance, the investments will start.
The necessity of a logistics hub was one of the first requests advanced to multinationals. In fact, the vocation of Tuscany for export is very strong: companies export pharmaceuticals for 1.2 billion yearly, more than 60% of the production which is assessed for a 2 billion euro turnover and equal to 64% of the total export in hi-tech of the region. And the advance of the medicines Made in Tuscany doesn’t seem to stop. In the first six months of 2017, the exportation of the region has registered +8.8% compared to the same period of last year. Pharmaceuticals is the sector with the best results, having recorded a spike of 98.1%, almost doubling the performance of 2016.
Source: Business Insider Italia (by Marta Panicucci)
Translator: Cristina Ambrosi