DESPITE overseeing one of Ireland's greatest industrial success stories – Pfizer's Cork manufacturing plants – Paul Duffy is a man living in fear. While his title is vice-president of manufacturing for Ireland and Singapore, Duffy is effectively the most senior man representing the company in Ireland.

But while his plants may produce huge quantities of blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Viagra for the world's largest pharmaceutical company, Duffy's fear is that the slightest outbreak of complacency could undermine 40 years of hard work.

"I would never be complacent and say if we just keep doing what we do today, the [new] drugs will come," he said.

"When you go back to when Pfizer started in Ringaskiddy in 1969, we were producing citric acid. Had we stayed manufacturing citric acid, the company wouldn't be here now. Companies that stay the same and don't adapt face a challenging future, so my focus is where the next innovation is coming from. How can we stay at the leading edge?"

Duffy's efforts seem to be paying off: Ireland has maintained its primacy over Pfizer's two other major manufacturing locations, Singapore and Puerto Rico, and a new €190m biotechnology facility is under construction at Shanballey, Co Cork.

Although the Irish plant's cost-competitiveness has fallen in recent years, Duffy said the Irish operation's focus on hi-tech manufacturing involving new drugs had somewhat compensated for this.

"In the model Pfizer follows today, we take products from research into Ireland first, we scale them up here and we optimise the manufacturing processes and then we transfer them to another location," he said.

"We do the technically difficult things: we make the manufacturing processes more environmentally-friendly, we increase throughputs and we increase yields. That's our designated role in Pfizer's global manufacturing model."

Despite this state of affairs, Duffy remains keen to reduce costs at the Irish plants and is even examining the possibility of Pfizer generating its own power in a bid to cut its energy bills.

"We are looking at wind technology. It's the obvious one – we have a lot of wind [in Ireland]. It's an investment: you put a wind turbine close to your plant and you get energy," he said.

"The company would have a very strong focus on a green agenda and energy-generation is a key part of that. Energy is unlikely to get any cheaper, so Pfizer takes a positive approach to investment like that. For instance, in Singapore, we have put a lot of money into solar energy."

But there are some issues which may have a major impact on the Cork operation's future that Duffy can't control: the most high-profile of which is US President Barack Obama's plan to launch a tax crackdown on US multinationals.

The policy is primarily aimed at tax havens and Duffy said the concern surrounding Ireland was "a bit overdone", pointing out that companies such as Pfizer didn't just come here for tax reasons.

He is concerned though that widely repeated misconceptions about Ireland's tax system could drag this country into Obama's sights.

"You see it in the UK press, in US press in papers like The Wall Street Journal. It's a bit disingenuous with regards to what we do here. We're not a tax haven. We are a low-tax economy with a transparent system," he said.

"Of course, it's annoying. It's a reputational issue: we spent years building our reputation as a credible location for business. These types of things don't help us in any way. But it's up to the government and companies like Pfizer to challenge it."

Remarkably, given the shift in US attitudes on tax, Duffy admitted that the American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland had considered launching a campaign for lower corporation tax earlier this year.

"We had some discussions about that at board level, but from my own perspective, we have a competitive package and looking to change downwards would irritate a lot of people and draw more attention upon ourselves," said Duffy, who became the organisation's president in January.

His position is at odds with that of the previous two chamber presidents, Microsoft's Paul Rellis and Intel's Jim O'Hara, who both called for tax cuts. But Duffy said that Ireland risked losing credibility if corporation tax was lowered below 12.5%.

"We're not a tax haven. It's not our business and we should never go there. We have to have substance and be credible. What we have today is credible – it's competitive but not the lowest. I don't think we should be pushed into increasing but I also wouldn't go reducing it."

The other major source of uncertainty for the Cork operations is Pfizer's proposed €50bn takeover of rival drugmaker Wyeth.

The companies employ more than 5,000 people in Ireland but Pfizer has announced it plans to axe 19,000 jobs and close five plants globally once the deal is completed. Duffy admitted it remained unclear what impact, if any, the merger would have on the company's Irish operations.

"The integration process is ongoing at a high level in New York and in terms of speculating, I don't know what the future may be other than I think the combination of the two companies would be good," he said.

"Wyeth brings biotechnology and vaccines, which Pfizer doesn't have, consumer-health drugs, which we don't have and they have a very active animal health group. It couldn't be a better fit and we're very positive on the future of the company based on that."

Duffy is also surprisingly positive about the prospects for Ireland as a manufacturing location for pharmaceuticals, despite the loss of the country's traditional cost advantage.

"There has been a lot of concern about the Irish economy but we haven't become stupid overnight. We still do a good job, we are still innovative and deliver good value for money for the company," he said.

"I believe if you are innovative and you find better manufacturing processes, you can compete with a location that relies on cheap labour using technology."

Curriculum Vitae

Paul Duffy
Age: 45
Family: Married with three children
Hobbies: DIY and watching sport
Education: BSc in chemistry and PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from NUI Galway; MBA from Open University
Career: 2008-Present: Vice-president of manufacturing, Ireland and Singapore, Pfizer; 2003-2008: Site leader, Pfizer Ringaskiddy; 2001-2003: Operations leader, Pfizer Ringaskiddy; 1999-2001: Site leader, Pfizer Little Island