AMERICAN MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY company Dexcom will launch its first European manufacturing site in Athenry, Galway and is expected to bring up to 1,000 jobs to the region in the next five years.

The company, which creates technology to monitor the blood glucose of people with diabetes, will invest €300 million in a new manufacturing facility on IDA-owned land.

500 construction jobs will also be created to build the site.

Dexcom have said that the plant will have the capacity to produce millions of glucose monitors annually when it is completed and will provide jobs for highly skilled graduates and technician level positions.

Fine Gael TD for Galways East Ciarán Cannon said that today was a “truly historic day” for Athenry.

It’s a truly historic day for Athenry and the West of Ireland. My sincere thanks to the powerful team @IDAIRELAND @IDAWestRegion and to Taoiseach @LeoVaradkar for their belief in Athenry, in Galway, and our people. A warm welcome to the team at Dexcom. pic.twitter.com/NwYNX6iEW3

— Ciaran Cannon (@ciarancannon) May 5, 2023

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen a wonderful transformation. And that’s why we’ve seen two new state of the art thousand-pupil schools being built, we’ll shortly see a new Gael campus getting underway.”

“We’ve seen investment in wastewater, roads, and shortly seeing investment in rail. And all of these things make Athenry an incredibly attractive place to invest in,” he said.

Cannon added that the plan to open a site in Athenry came about after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and IDA executives met with Dexcom at their headquarters in San Diego, California last year.

Executive Vice President of Global Operations at Dexcom Barry Regan told Morning Ireland that Athenry was a “great” location for the company. 

“I think it’s about 650,000 people that live within a 30 minute commute of where we are. We think we found a great location with lots of accessible talent and we’re partnering with all the local agencies and county councils.”

“The product we’re going to be making in Athenry is the latest generation project at Dexcom. We just launched it in December in Europe and April in the US. It’s leading edge technology. It’s the most accurate system in the world,” he said.

Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney tweeted: “1000 new jobs for Galway. Fantastic vote of confidence from Dexcom for the West!”