Work has started on the demolition of redundant buildings at the GSK manufacturing site in Worthing.
New video footage shows work in progress in Southdownview Way at the pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, formerly GlaxoSmithKline.
The Herald understands that the buildings being demolished are old ones which have not been used for a number of years, and this work is being done in phases.
A GSK spokesperson said: “GSK Worthing is a key part of our UK manufacturing network, producing important medicines for patients in the UK and around the world.”
Former staff say the building being demolished has never been used.
In December 2013, GSK announced a series of investments totalling approximately £200million nationally, including at its Worthing site.
A new bulk sterile building and filling line with state-of-the-art equipment was planned for Worthing for the company’s leading antibiotic medicine, Augmentin. It was the company’s first new factory in the UK for 40 years.
Planning permission was granted by Worthing Borough Council in May 2014 for a new pharmaceutical production building incorporating three manufacturing modules, utility and other associated engineering operations.
But in July 2017, after the Brexit referendum, GlaxoSmithKline said it would be outsourcing some manufacturing activity at its Southdownview Way site, meaning 246 permanent jobs out of the 672-strong Worthing team – more than a third – would be lost.
The company also planned to sell the Horlicks and MaxiNutrition brands in the UK, as part of a shift towards investing more into manufacturing respiratory and HIV medicines.
A spokesman said at the time that none of the announcements made by the company resulted from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
Further changes to manufacturing operations were announced in July 2019, when staff were called to a meeting and told work on some products managed at the Worthing site would be moved from the town before the end of 2020.
GSK said the move followed a review of its global antibiotics manufacturing operations.
A spokesman said: “The review concluded that it is no longer cost competitive to manufacture the active ingredients for sterile antibiotics and our injectable Augmentin product at our factory in Worthing.
“As such, we have made the proposal to phase out the manufacturing of the active ingredients for sterile antibiotics and our injectable Augmentin product at the Worthing site by end of 2020.
“Augmentin remains one of our priority brands in GSK’s Classic and Established (CEP) portfolio. The site will continue to manufacture Augmentin in its oral tablet form which makes up the vast proportion of the overall brand’s revenue. Injectable Augmentin currently represents less than 3 per cent of the overall brand portfolio.”
The announcement came ‘totally out of the blue’, according to trade union Unite, leaving staff shocked, angry and upset.
One employee said GSK had abandoned plans to continue with the sterile facility which it had only just finished building.
