A medicines manufacturing centre aimed to solve major pharmaceutical industry challenges and accelerate access to affordable medicines has finished construction.
Located in Renfrewshire, in the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS), the £35m facility is designed to develop next-generation pharmaceutical manufacturing processes for the medicines supply chain.
The facility has been developed through a collaboration between technology innovation CPI, the University of Strathclyde, UK Research and Innovation, Scottish Enterprise and founding industry partners, AstraZeneca and GSK.
The environmental and financial implications of pharmaceutical manufacturing can hinder the ability to efficiently respond to global health challenges and streamline medicine supply to patients.
The facility is aimed to help solve these pharma challenges by providing advanced technologies alongside sustainable business growth expertise. Industry, academia, healthcare providers, and regulators will work within the GMP environment on technologies and their pathway for their adoption into the pharmaceutical supply chain. A suite of cleanrooms will support users to develop processes using industry 4.0 manufacturing technologies, including continuous, digital, and autonomous manufacturing.
At commercial scale, the facility will industrialise techniques for producing patient-centric medicines, including real-time release of drugs and integrated process analytics. The technologies are hoped to support the reduction of materials used in process development, and accelerate timelines for achieving right first time and real-time release manufacturing principles.
The internal fit out of the facility is planned to be completed in early 2022. In the first 5 years of its operation, the centre is expected to support over 100 jobs, both technical and non-technical, and generate £200m investment in advanced technologies.
Dave Tudor, Managing Director of the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, Quality and Biologics, at CPI, said: “The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre will help the pharmaceutical industry to increase momentum in technology translation by creating partnerships, working with regulators, and partnering with innovators. This will ultimately lead to a reduction in time to market, drive productivity, improve compliance and reduce the carbon footprint of medicines manufacturing. Ahead of the full completion of the centre in early 2022, we continue to collaborate with industry and academic partners to develop next-generation digital manufacturing technologies, bringing us closer to medicines innovation that will ultimately benefit patients.”
