Medicines manufacturing innovation facility to be established in Scotland

A new £56 million medicines manufacturing innovation facility is to be established in Renfrewshire, Scotland, and will help to strengthen innovation in the UK pharmaceutical industry.

The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC) will be led by the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP), and founding industry partners, AstraZeneca and GSK.

Through this new centre, the UK will be afforded the opportunity to be a technology and innovation leader in small molecule pharmaceutical and fine chemical manufacturing, as such both these sectors will be boosted, competitively.

Using collaborative innovation and new facilities, the centre will be employed to develop efficient and effective technologies. Additionally, as the building will be flexible and adaptable, it will be available for use by industry, academia, healthcare providers and regulators to work collaboratively to address challenges along the medicines supply chain.

Those in the medicines manufacturing community in the UK will be supported through in-house industrial and academic experts, thought leadership and a support structure to help small and medium sized enterprises and start-ups innovate and grow.

By enhancing the relationship between those performing research and those manufacturing the drugs, it is expected that the process risk involved in adopting disruptive technologies will be reduced and the translation of the country’s strong research base into new industrial approaches of the future will be accelerated.

The centre aims to become an international beacon for innovation in small molecule medicines manufacturing, and will incorporate capabilities for development and manufacturing of drug substances and drug products in a GMP-capable environment. This will aid the materials quantities used in process development to be minimised, and timelines to be accelerated to achieve just-in-time, right-first-time and real-time-release manufacturing principles. Users will be able to evaluate, test and prototype processes using an array of advanced Industry 4.0 manufacturing technologies including continuous, digital and autonomous manufacturing.

This project is anticipated to take three years and is set to start in the summer this year (2018). It could create up to 80 high value jobs by 2023 and attract £80.5 million of R&D investment by 2028. A further 90 jobs will be created or retained during design and construction. Indirect employment will be generated through start-ups, SMEs and large companies that will grow their businesses using the transformative manufacturing technologies developed within the MMIC.

The new manufacturing centre is funded by several sources including UK Research and Innovation (£13 million through the UK Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund), Scottish Enterprise (£15 million) and founding industry partners GlaxoSmithKline (up to £7 million) and AstraZeneca (up to £7 million). The remaining funds will come from revenue to be attracted from funding bids and commercial projects.

“The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre will enhance the UK’s existing competitive advantage by deepening the skills base and strengthening the rationale for companies to invest in new, highly productive medicines manufacturing,” said Nigel Perry MBE FREng, chief executive officer at CPI. “CPI is delighted to be working alongside the University of Strathclyde, Innovate UK, Scottish Government and our industry partners to deliver this globally unique centre that will prepare the pharmaceutical supply chain for vital, next generation medicines and further extend CPI’s healthcare capabilities.”

Mike Thompson, CEO of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), commented: “This is a strong signal of intent from government and the pharmaceutical industry that they are ready to get behind the UK as a global leader in medicines manufacturing. Medicines manufacturing is no longer the siloed, labour intensive process of yesteryear. This cutting-edge centre instead provides a unique space for academics, research scientists and manufacturing partners to work side by side designing new ways to transition the medicines of the future out of development and in to the supply chain. Global pharmaceutical companies are already excited about UK science, our world leading Universities and unique research centres and this facility means we now have a manufacturing innovation site to rival anything in the world.”

Steve Bates, CEO of the Bioindustry Association (BIA), added: “Improving productivity in drug development is vital to economic innovation for our sector. Enabling that to happen in the UK gives us competitive advantage and is a good example of joined up industrial strategy in action.”