Pharmaceutical company Aurobindo is to invest €3 million in an oncology laboratory, creating 20 jobs.

Worldwide, Aurobindo employs over 20,000 people and has markets in 100 countries, including many European ones, where it has over 9,000 marketing authorisations for sales.

The pharmaceutical sector has 26 companies in Malta, with 11 of them having extensions approved by Malta Enterprise.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said during a visit to the factory on Friday that over the past five years, there had been an increase of €28 million in pharmaceutical exports – a rise of 11 per cent.