Ireland’s 'Unprecedented' Pharmaceutical 'Portal'
The growth of a Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre
Intro:
This article looks at how Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry was positioned towards an ‘acceleration of commercial outputs’ long before the production of covid 19 vaccines, ahead of the opening of the Roy Butler inquest on Monday.
Roy died five days after he was administered the Janssen ‘one shot’ vaccine, which was subsequently withdrawn from the market.
The Coroner, Philip Comyn, has requested a full history of safety records from Janssen on it’s covid 19 shot.
In instances whereby the manufacture of vaccines is fast tracked and released for public use on account of ‘emergency use authorisation’ - what happens to informed consent?
I’ve been looking back through old records and articles on the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland ahead of the Roy Butler inquest in Cork next week. Roy received the Janssen shot on August 12, 2021 and died five days later.
One item caught my eye.
In 2009, then Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan launched a curious initiative.
A portal was established in what was described as ‘unprecedented’, a ‘world first’ and a ‘landmark day’ for the global pharmaceutical industry.
Cork is a major hub for pharma activity in Ireland. This country endured one of the longest and harshest lockdown measures in the world and the level of censorship on the topic of vaccine injuries and deaths here, has been exceptional. There are multiple factors that could bring about this situation. But certainly, the value of the pharmaceutical industry to the Irish economy must play a role.
Fifteen years ago, in 2009, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment issued a press release titled:
“Tánaiste launches a world first in pharmaceutical R&D collaboration at University of Limerick.”
The press release heralded the launch of the “World’s First Pharmaceutical Collaborative Best Practice Crystallization Web-Portal.”
The portal (www.BPX.ie) was designed for, and by, the pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions.
The press release does not mention anywhere, that this incredible new portal development, was a public private partnership (PPP), supported by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), a state body with responsibility for funding ‘research in science and technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) with a strategic focus.’
Readers in Ireland will be familiar with the SFI’s executive committee chair and Director General, Professor Philip Nolan, who assumed the position on January 17, 2022. Nolan is a former member of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) which was established to manage the covid 19 ‘pandemic’ in Ireland.
SFI as a state agency has it’s own legislation in Irish law, titled the Industrial Development (Science Foundation Ireland) Act 2003 and appears in the Irish Statute Book. We learn from the 2003 Act that Science Foundation Ireland was established under Irish Law as a corporate body, it has a title as Gaeilge; ‘Fondúireacht Eolaíochta Éireann’ and it’s own official seal.
Here is the Irish Statute Book describes the establishment of SFI:
Science Foundation Ireland
6.—(1) There shall stand established on the establishment day an
agency of Forfás to be known as Science Foundation Ireland or, in
the Irish language, Fondu´ireacht Eolaı´ochta E´ireann to perform the
functions assigned to it by this Act and is referred to in this Act as
the ‘‘Foundation’’.
(2) The Foundation shall be a body corporate with perpetual succession and an official seal.
Six years after the Act became law, the landmark portal was established. It arose from a requirement (according to pharmaceutical ‘industry partners’) to foster a collaborative environment ‘which would focus on best practice techniques.’
“This in turn will assist key research efforts, while supporting the sector locally within Ireland in it’s strategy to move up the R&D knowledge and value chain,” the Department stated in it’s press release.
The following is a comprehensive list of the pharma companies involved, note the inclusion of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which manufactured the Janssen ‘one shot’ covid injection that was administered to hundreds of thousands of Irish people before it was withdrawn from the market.
Pfizer
GlaxoSmithKline
Eli-Lilly
Janssen Pharmaceuticals
Roche
Merck Sharp & Dohme
Clarochem
Covidien*
Schering Plough
Company researchers were working with researchers from five Irish universities, University of Limerick (UL), University College Cork, NUI Galway, Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin.
Solid State Pharmaceutical Centre
The Portal, or website was developed through a research group with the title Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster (SSPC). The SSPC, led by UL is described as a collaborative research group of Ireland’s leading pharmaceutical companies and third level institutions, with Government funding being provided through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).
Science Foundation Ireland, a corporate state body, is funded by the Irish government, ie – the Irish tax payer.
Taoiseach of Ireland at the time of the establishment of this ‘portal’ was Brian Cowan, who served as leader of the Fianna Fail party during what some might describe as a somewhat crucial phase in modern Irish history, from 2008 to 2011.
Here’s how then Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan described the launch of the pharmaceutical ‘portal.’
“This is a landmark day for scientific research in Ireland and, indeed, on a global scale. The development of this secure online facility enables unprecedented collaboration among a range of industrial and academic partners, towards establishing best practice in the field of pharmaceutical compound crystallisation.”
Here’s how the ‘portal’ is described by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment:
“The Best Practice Crystallization (BPX.ie) site is the result of a need highlighted by industrial partners to create a collaborative environment which would focus on best practice techniques. This in turn will assist key research efforts, while supporting the sector locally within Ireland in it’s strategy to move up the R&D (research and development) knowledge and value chain.”
Here’s some more detail from former Tánaiste Coughlan:
“This proactive and visionary arrangement illustrates the collective determination among Ireland’s scientific community to pool their resources and expertise towards achieving far-reaching outcomes for the benefit of Ireland, and for the stakeholders involved. For me, this unparalleled level of engagement signals the genesis of a new kind of multi-sectoral partnership which, it is hoped, will be adopted by other disciplines in the wider science and engineering arena, both here and internationally.”
Professor Kieran Hodnett, who was Scientific Director of SSPC at UL at the time, noted how the portal would ‘reinforce Ireland’s reputation as a leader and innovator in a sector which plays such a vital role in our economy.’
The press release issued in 2009 also quotes Dr Stephen Simpson as Director, Life Science, Science Foundation Ireland, who said:
“The SFI Strategic Research Cluster model clearly demonstrates the benefits of pooling resources and is creating new opportunities which can potentially accelerate commercial outputs and other beneficial consequences.”
The Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster was established by Science Foundation Ireland in 2007 under their Strategic Research Clusters Programme with funding of €6.97m.
Take a look at the graphic below, which illustrates how fast covid 19 vaccines were developed in comparison to standard vaccines.
EU covid vaccine contracts cost €71 Billion
The graphic features in a special report from European Court of Auditors on the on covid 19 vaccine procurement. It concluded that ‘sufficient doses secured after initial challenges, but performance of the process not sufficiently assessed.’
The report notes that by November 2021, the Commission had signed €71 billion worth of contracts on behalf of member states, to purchase up to 4.6 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses.
“Most of these contracts are advance purchase agreements, in which the Commission shares the development risk of a vaccine with the vaccine manufacturers and supports the preparation of at-scale production capacity through upfront payments from the EU budget,” the report states.
In many cases, those that still do not fully accept that vaccines caused harm, but are open to considering the possibility, ask why?
Put simply, the process enabled an eye-watering transfer of tax-payer funds into private corporations. That transfer of wealth, in the form of public private partnership (PPP) development funding for scientific research - with particular focus on ‘active pharmaceutical ingredient’ (API) manufacturing, began long before 2020.
Some extracts from a Chemistry Europe article on Industry–Academia Partnership in Ireland:
Ireland is the largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals in Europe. Exports exceed €60 billion per year and the value of the sector is estimated at €40 billion.
Approximately 120 overseas companies have plants in Ireland, and remarkably, all of the top ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the world have operations here.
The pharmaceutical industry employs more than 25,000 people directly and about the same indirectly, and produces over 50 % of all goods exported from Ireland.
In 2017, the related biotech industry employs about 6000, and this is predicted to rise to over 11 000 by the end of 2018.
We will learn more about the acceleration of commercial outputs at Roy Butler’s inquest, which opens in Cork on Monday September 23rd. The Coroner, Philip Comyn, has requested a full history of safety records from Janssen on it’s covid 19 shot.
*Readers may have noticed the presence of a company with the title ‘Covidien’ in the list of pharmaceutical companies supported by the Best Practice Crystallization portal.
Covidien is described as ‘an Irish-headquartered global health care products company and manufacturer of medical devices and supplies.’ It became an independent publicly traded company in 2007. It was purchased by Medtronic in a transaction that closed in 2015. The now-merged company is headquartered in Ireland, where Covidien was based.
Among the medical products made by Covidien are anti-blood clotting compression socks.
Medtronic (MDT) is a medical device company that makes stents for heart blockages. It generated more than $31.2 billion in revenues from four business segments in 2023. These four business segments include focus on cardiovascular (37% of net sales), medical-surgical (27%), neuroscience (28.7%), and diabetes (7.2%).
Read an article titled ‘How Medtronic Makes Money’ here
Read about Ireland’s unique pharmaceutical industry and the PPP mechanism here
Read the European Court of Auditors report on covid vaccine procurement here
This Substack writer worked for Medtronic in Galway after graduating from UCG. I was studying for a diploma in Journalism back in 2003, checking the integrity of stents for cardiovascular procedures under a microscope. This was the first and last time I’d worked in a laboratory factory setting. I remember that atmosphere prompting me to re-read George Orwell’s 1984.
Great research, Louise! Thank you. UL played a, perhaps even more ignominious, role in the lockdowns. Apparently it was some of their statisticians, (not the mathematicians) who provide most of the analysis on 'Covid numbers' for NEPHET. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!
Thanks so much for your unbelievably detailed reporting !!
Great work !!