Eye hospital launches specials manufacturing unit
The world-famous Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has invested more than
The world-famous Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has invested more than £12m in a sterile manufacturing facility to make specials (unlicensed medicines).
Moorfields Pharmaceuticals, located in London, UK, will specialise in the manufacture and supply of sterile liquid products. The facility currently employs 40 highly experienced staff and makes more than 150 products, mainly for us in the UK, although some are exported.
The vast majority of the products made by Moorfields Pharmaceuticals are not manufactured anywhere else in the world. The facility's historical remit was to enable clinicians and researchers to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their clinical conditions. This has resulted in staff at Moorfields Pharmaceuticals building up a reservoir of knowledge from manufacturing a vast array of different products, both unlicensed and licensed, often preservative-free and presented in unit dose form.
It offers a range of services, including hand filling into vials, bottles and syringes; automated filling for larger batch sizes; blow/fill/seal for unit doses; and packaging of randomised clinical trials.
Strong links with the Eye Hospital mean that Moorfields Pharmaceuticals is uniquely placed to fulfil third party requirements for clinical trials manufacture, because of its ability to accommodate very short runs - from a batch size of a single unit of a single product - and its proximity to a vast supply of ophthalmic expertise and potential clinical trials candidates. The facility is also equipped to manufacture sterile products for use in other therapeutic areas in addition to opthalmics.
'Moorfields was very entrepreneurial when it took the decision to develop the facility,' said Alan Krol, managing director of Moorfields Pharmaceuticals. 'We were created as an autonomous organisation, able to operate in a commercial fashion, so we can be truly competitive with a clear, commercial focus.'
All profits made by Moorfields Pharmaceuticals go back into the Eye Hospital to fund further research and development into new ophthalmic treatments.
