DRUG maker Norgine welcomed WDA boss Roger Jones to its Hengoed plant yesterday to open a new packaging facility.

The project is the latest chapter in an £8 million investment story which has led to a doubling of the workforce from 99 to 227 over the last six years.

The plant's output has increased annually and last year it produced a record 11.4 million packs of sachets, tablets, capsules and liquids.

And despite all the economic gloom around at the moment a 30 per cent increase in output is planned for 2003.

Norgine is a pan-European operation employing 775 staff across 15 countries.

Groupwide sales reached 118 million euros last year (about £84.7m), a ten per cent increase on 2001 and the 16th year of double-digit growth.

Mr Jones said: "Britain has an extremely successful pharmaceutical industry. "Export sales of medicines from the UK provided Britain with a trade surplus of £2.6 billion in 2001.

"Biosciences in general comprise the fastest-growing sector of the economy and it's extremely important for Welsh prosperity that we are well-represented in this field."

He added that the WDA was delighted that Norgine was demonstrating how a specialist pharmaceutical producer can find the right conditions in the Valleys for outstanding growth.

Norgine managing director Peter Harsant said: "We had the confidence to invest heavily in Wales because of the excellence of the working team at Hengoed and because of the support and encouragement we've received from the WDA and the Assembly.

"We've found that we can recruit high quality staff locally to maintain our expansion programme and we believe we will continue to flourish here."

Norgine can trace its origins to 1906 when it was founded as a chemical company in Bohemia.

Its first pharmaceutical products were produced in 1919 and it established Belgian, French, German and UK affiliates in the 1920s.

The company's products which include Normacol, Movical, Klean-Prep (under license from the Helsinn Group) and Pyralvex are targeted mainly at gastrointestinal illnesses and demand is rising internationally.

More than half the Hengoed plant's output by value is exported to Continental Europe, Asia and Africa.

Hengoed is one of Norgine's two main manufacturing bases, the other one is at Dreux in France.