An investment of €3.5 million by Pharmadox Healthcare was announced on Thursday during a visit to the company by energy minister, Miriam Dalli.

The investment is expected to create some 50 new jobs.

Dr Dalli praised the company, which was launched in 2010 as a small laboratory run by four people, as an “unprecedented success story”.

Since its humble origins, the company has since grown to employ more than 100 people and has invested €7 million in the past five years.

Dr Dalli said the company “goes to show how [Malta] has entrepreneurs and talented people who are expanding from a small company to reach markets in […] highly competitive industries”.

She also emphasised that the manufacturing sector is at the centre of the Government’s policy, and that the industry “plays a crucial role in putting Malta on the world map”.

Along with the investment, Pharmadox Healthcare will extend the Good Manufacturing Practice license issued by the Medicines Authority in Malta.

In the coming months, the company will begin building a new block for the company to expand both its physical space and operations.

The investment was supported by Malta Enterprise and INDIS Malta, for which the company director Peter Seychell thanked them.

For his part, Malta Enterprises chief executive, Kurt Farrugia, said that manufacturing and the digital sector have a prominent role in better absorbing the economic impact of COVID, continuing “among the niches that continued [in 2020] to grow and employ more people were, in fact, pharmaceuticals and medical devices."