GlaxoSmithKline’s Australian headquarters and largest manufacturing facility are in Boronia, Victoria.

Established in 1970 after being relocated from North Melbourne, the Boronia head office houses employees working in marketing and sales, research and development, regulatory affairs, government and corporate affairs, finance, IT and human resources.

The manufacturing plant is the largest GSK sterile facility globally. The site houses world leading blow-fill-seal technology, featuring eight filling machines and six packaging lines, as well as 10 tableting lines. The most recent edition is a second Relenza line completed in 2006.

The site has the capacity to produce 1.4 billion tablets per annum, including products for migraine, herpes, peptic ulcers, treatment of epilepsy, smoking cessation and anti-virals. Additional capsule products are manufactured for relief of asthma and pain management.

A microbiology laboratory is also located at the Boronia site that tests 4,000 samples each year and a chemistry laboratory that test 11,000 samples each year.

More than 850 people work at Boronia.

GlaxoSmithKline’s site at Ermington, in Sydney’s north, manufactures and markets our consumer products that are sold in pharmacies and supermarkets.

Many of GSKs most well known products are manufactured at the facility, including Panadol and Macleans. Each year the plant produces more than 50 million packs of Panadol, 10 million bottles of paediatric liquids and 22 million tubes of toothpaste.

Products are exported to 15 different countries.

In 2006 GSK celebrates 50 years of Panadol in Australia, and the popular pain relieving drug has been manufactured at Ermington since 1959.

GSK currently employs 380 people in Ermington.

The Tasmanian poppy industry was pioneered by Glaxo Australia in the early 1960s.

Through significant developments and the application of innovative research and development, GSK continues to contract with and assist Tasmanian farmers to grow poppy crop, directly contributing to the word’s medicinal opiate needs. Making this possible is a world-leading crop handling facility at Latrobe, Tasmania, that allows the crop to be harvested and processed with maximum efficiency.