The pharmaceutical industry thrives in Belfast, where the Queen’s University Belfast offers numerous advanced degree programs in relevant sciences, providing the local market with a steady influx of top-tier, freshly trained talent. Multinational and regional companies alike compete to bring innovations to Northern Ireland’s national pharmaceutical market. This growth represents exciting movement in job opportunities and product development across the country, and Belfast especially. Read on to learn about the major players in the market.
Pharmaceutical Companies in Belfast
- Otsuka America Pharmaceutical
- Eli Lily and Company
- Elanco
- Viatris
- Parexel
Top Pharmaceutical Companies in Belfast
Elanco is the third largest animal health company in the pharmaceutical sector worldwide. It develops and manufactures medications and vaccinations for agricultural and companion animals. Before splitting off in 2019, the company was a subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company. For pets, Elanco offers a range of products that protect against fleas and ticks, like sprays, collars and household fogs.
Organon is a niche pharmaceutical company that focuses on women’s health treatments and a class of drugs called biosimilars, which are like generic versions of biologic treatments. Its work in the women’s health space covers contraceptive products including NuvaRing and Nexplanon, as well as the follicle-stimulating fertility drug Puregon.
Parexel is a contract research organization in the biopharmaceutical sector. Its historical expertise, which has been earned over 35 years in business, is in full-cycle drug development. The company also offers outsourced research and consulting on markets and market access, strategy and regulatory issues within the pharmaceutical industry.
Multinational company Viatris is one of Ireland and Northern Ireland’s largest pharmaceutical businesses, employing more than 1,600 team members nationally across two research sites and four manufacturing facilities. The company, which was formed from a spinoff of Pfizer, offers patented branded drugs, generics and over the counter products in 10 therapeutic areas.
Almac Group is a contract development and manufacturing organization, or CDMO. Like other CDMOs, it functions as a third-party laboratory and research resource for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, which rely on its efficiency and singular focus to fast track the research, development and manufacturing processes within the product lifecycle.
Otsuka UK is the United Kingdom’s branch of Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, an American multinational pharmaceutical company. “Our ultimate goal is to help people live healthier lives,” the company states. Its U.K. operations target central nervous system agents and specialty medicines, with a focus on underserved conditions and unmet patient needs.
Benchling is a company that operates a software platform for life sciences research and development. It focuses on applications in biotech and pharmaceutical research, offering cloud-based SaaS products that support, organize and optimize laboratory processes in medical device, drug and therapeutic product discovery.
Celerion is a clinical research organization in the pharmaceutical space. Its product development pipeline focuses on the early stages of clinical trials and on bioanalytics, which is a niche of chemistry that identifies the specific chemical composition of biological sample materials. Celerion’s mission is to accelerate the timeline of getting new, potentially groundbreaking drugs to market.
Diaceutics PLC uses advanced data analytics processes to support drug discovery and therapeutic targeting within the pharmaceutical sector. Its software solutions are designed to support new products and tools in precision medicine, which centers around engineering bespoke treatments for rare and genetic diseases. These treatments are designed to address specific factors in a patient’s genetic or molecular makeup, and data science helps to identify the people who can best benefit from a treatment.
Eli Lilly and Company is an enterprise pharmaceutical company. Holding the highest valuation of any drug company in the world with a staggering market cap of $842 billion, the company is best known for iconic products like the antidepressants Prozac and Cymbalta, and for being the first company to mass produce both insulin and the polio vaccine.
