Scotland to house world-first manufacturing innovation centre

A new drug manufacturing innovation centre will be built in Renfrewshire in Scotland and be the first of its kind in the world. It will be funded by £13 million from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, £15 million from Scottish Enterprise, and £7 million from both AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.
The new centre, the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, will be located next to the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland in the middle of an Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District, and will offer businesses support to improve processes and technologies in small molecule pharmaceutical and fine chemical manufacturing to make medicines available to patients quicker. It hopes to create up to 80 new R&D jobs by 2023 and attract over £80 million of R&D investment by 2028.
Andy Evans, chair of the MMIP and head of Macclesfield Site for AstraZeneca said: “Our ambition is for patients worldwide to benefit from the accelerated adoption of emerging and novel medicine manufacturing technologies developed in the UK”
Mike Thompson, chief executive of the ABPI said: “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.”