Abbott in Ireland: Local legacies with global impact
Abbott’s Willis, Aoife Freestyle Diabetes Libre Care Watkin, Vice Executive President, And Ambassador, Jared
Article authored by , Site Director, Abbott Kilkenny.
The fundamental nature of healthcare is changing. We are moving from a world where healthcare is sought when something is wrong, to one where healthcare is proactive and empowers us to get and stay healthy.
At Abbott we are taking centre stage of this revolution. Through new advances like connected medical devices that send your health data to your doctor and your smartphone, biowearable sensors that offer real-time insights to what’s happening inside your body and tests that give you answers, fast and in your home, we’re innovating health tech that is more responsive, connected, and personalized.
Our goal is to help people have better conversations with their doctors and have more personal control, over their health and care, so they can live their best lives.
Equally important to us is ensuring that our products are more accessible to people around the world. To impact the most lives, we recognise that we must get our healthcare innovations to the people who need them most. Our clear focus is on designing access and affordability into our products, so that by 2030 we can improve the health of 3 billion people a year — 1 billion more people than we were helping in 2020.
Reaching this goal will mean that we’re helping one in three people around the world annually.
Abbott is no stranger to pioneering breakthroughs in healthcare. For more than 135 years, we have been improving people’s health at all ages and stages of life — by tackling some of the world’s most pressing healthcare challenges with our innovative products and technologies.
Today we have more than 114,000 Abbott colleagues around the world dedicated to our mission serving people in more than 160 countries.
Ireland has been a central part of our journey since 1946, when we first established here. Today, Ireland is synonymous with excellence in advanced manufacturing and R&D, largely due to its highly skilled workforce, enviable location in the EU and the work-life balance it offers. As one of the very first US companies to set up in the country, Abbott is proud to have been a part of that legacy for now almost eight decades.
Today, Abbott employs over 5,500 people in Ireland and with 10 sites, based in all four provinces. It is one of the largest multinational companies in the country and produces a range of lifesaving and life-enhancing products across diabetes care, cardiovascular, diagnostics and nutrition.
Our activities in Ireland also include commercial operations and shared services which provide regional and global support to all Abbott’s businesses worldwide.
Across Ireland, Abbott colleagues are creating the future of healthcare through life-changing technologies and products that drive breakthroughs in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Our healthcare products manufactured in Ireland are now exported to more than 130 countries around the world.
The best way to understand how Abbott delivers on the commitment of helping people to live their fullest lives, is to explore the life-changing technologies that achieve this.
Diabetes care is one area where Abbott has had a long history of innovation. We believe people with diabetes should have the freedom to enjoy vigorous and active lives. For many years we have been developing systems to help people with diabetes to achieve this and to manage their condition more effectively.
First launched in Ireland in 2016, our revolutionary FreeStyle Libre system is now the No 1 glucose sensing system in the world. It is partly manufactured in Ireland and helps more than 5.5 million people across more than 60 countries to easily monitor their glucose levels.
The system replaces the need for routine finger stick tests through the use of a sensor, worn on the back of the upper arm. This allows the user to view their real-time glucose readings through a dedicated smartphone app.
Since last December FreeStyle Libre 2 system has been available free of charge, through the HSE, to anyone in Ireland living with Type 1 diabetes. It now provides users with minute-by-minute glucose readings and customisable real-time glucose alarms.
Ireland plays an important global role in the manufacturing of the FreeStyle Libre technology and Abbott’s delivery of diabetes care globally.
Since 2007, our diabetes care facility in Donegal has proudly served as the sole global producer of FreeStyle blood glucose test strips. Since that time Donegal has produced no less than 19 billion test strips.
A pivotal moment came in 2018 when the Donegal site expanded its horizons and began producing the sensor for the revolutionary FreeStyle Libre system. This has placed Ireland at the global epicentre of 21st century diabetes care innovation. The Donegal site was awarded the Shingo Silver Medallion in 2022.
More recently, in 2022 we announced a major expansion of our Irish manufacturing operations, specifically to meet the demand for the FreeStyle Libre technology. This has included investing €440 million and creating approximately 1,000 new jobs in Donegal and in a brand-new site in Kilkenny.
Construction is now well underway on that new site, a 30,000 sqm state-of-the-art facility. This will become our 10th location nationally and when manufacturing commences later this year, the site will employ around 800 people.
Recruitment for permanent positions is ongoing in Kilkenny. There are exciting roles in engineering, quality control, medical device manufacturing and other science-based areas advertised on our website, www.ie.abbott/careers.
Abbott’s footprint in Ireland is unique, as no other multinational company has as many sites or operates in as many locations. Each of these sites makes a valuable contribution to our business and to enriching lives around the world.
Through our cardiovascular business, we are keeping hearts healthy with technology that helps people and their doctors better manage their health.
Abbott is the world leader in drug-eluting stents, and it is in Clonmel that we are researching, developing, and manufacturing these life-changing heart repair devices.
Our Irish R&D team is responsible for developing our market-leading family of stents, XIENCE. This is helping people worldwide who, because of the nature of their cardiovascular disease, might not previously have been suitable for minimally invasive surgery.
Clonmel is also at the forefront of manufacturing XIENCE stents for global use.
We continue to hire for roles in our cardiovascular team in areas such as operations, quality, and engineering.
Nutrition Manufacturing (Cootehill and Sligo) Through our nutrition business we are using the latest science to create better ways to nourish your body at every stage of life.
Since 1975, in Cootehill on the Cavan Monaghan border, we have developed products to help babies and young children grow. Today we produce a range of infant formulas that are distributed to throughout the world.
In doing this we are also supporting local farmers, as we require the help of some 1,000 dairy farms in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Together they supply quality milk to our facility which can process as much as 500,000 litres of milk per day.
The Sligo site first opened in 1974 and relocated our Device Centre of Excellence to a state-of-the-art facility in 2018 where we manufacture a range of enteral nutrition feeding devices using state of the art manufacturing technologies. Our products help our customers in ICU’s, hospitals, patients’ homes, and care homes receive their vital nutrition. In 2017 the Sligo Nutrition Site was awarded the Shingo Prize for operational excellence.
As diagnostics becomes an increasingly important part of medicine, we are dedicated to providing people with timely information so they can make better decisions for their health. Many of these products are made in our Sligo diagnostics site. Opened in 1994, today Sligo is our second largest diagnostics manufacturing facility anywhere in the world.
Meanwhile, our diagnostics business in Longford is celebrating 21 years of success this year. Over that period the site has supplied no less than 10 billion diagnostic tests.
Included in Longford’s portfolio is one of our flagship products, the High-Sensivity Troponin-I blood test. This is used by doctors to evaluate heart attacks in patients, and it may greatly benefit women, as they often produce lower levels of the troponin protein when experiencing a heart attack.
Operational Excellence is at the core of the Longford site, as recognised by winning the prestigious Shingo Prize in 2016, which recognises global leadership in operational excellence.
Our site in Galway too plays an important part in diagnostics. It serves as the international hub for our rapid diagnostics business. This helps to deliver more than 2 billion tests annually, including the supply of millions of tests for COVID, HIV, diabetes and more.
Offices in Dublin play a major role in supporting our business in Europe and around the world to operate smoothly. A team in Liffey Valley is responsible for the sales, marketing, and distribution of a wide range of diabetes, diagnostic, and nutritional products in Ireland. While Cherrywood has been home to Abbott’s European Financial Shared Service Operations since 2015 and Abbott’s EMEA Regional IT Hub since 2020.
Working for Abbott is more than just a job, it’s about a career and it’s about making a difference. Our 5,500 colleagues in Ireland make a difference every day by working to produce these products that help people around the world live fuller and healthier lives.
Our people can develop and build their careers in a global company with all the benefits this brings, while living in local communities throughout Ireland. We pride ourselves on making a difference to our employees, supporting them as they grow, developing their skills, and helping them build successful careers.
Our employees also have an opportunity to work together to support their local communities. We have a culture of giving and our community support is very strong in Ireland.
Through our Croí an Oir programme the employees at each of our sites select and support a local ‘charity of choice’ each year. This fundraising has supported local schools, mental health supports, a care home for the elderly and more. Each successful fundraising project is led by the creativity of our teams.
We promote good health in our communities through our support of the Abbott World Marathon Majors and locally the Longford Marathon and Marathon Kids. Our Future Well Kids programme partners with local schools and empowers students to develop healthy habits today, so they can reduce their risk of getting diabetes or heart disease when they are older.
We are passionate about supporting young people and education because to continue to meet the future challenges of healthcare, we will rely upon the innovation, creativity, and imagination of the next generation of scientists and engineers.
To achieve this, we run and support events across the country to demonstrate the many exciting pathways that STEM education opens up.
Inspired by their commitment to providing compassionate care to children and their families, we have been proud to support the vital work of the Jack and Jill Foundation since 2022.
Abbott continues to push the boundaries of healthcare innovation and we remain dedicated to creating a healthier future for all. Our strong presence in Ireland will continue to make us a stronger company and support our goal of helping people live fuller lives.
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