Pharmaceutical Business review

£56m medicines manufacturing innovation center to be established in Scotland

Part of the government’s modern industrial strategy, the Scottish project will secure £13m funding from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The funding is offered by UK Research and Innovation, via Innovate UK.

The remaining funding will be provided by Scottish Enterprise, as well as drug majors AstraZeneca and GSK.

The new centre is being developed to support firms in developing processes and technologies for manufacturing medicines.

Both start-ups and multinational pharmaceutical firms can use the new centre to speed-up the development of new medicines and reach the market quickly.

The new investment into UK medicines manufacturing will enable the country to compete in a £98bn worth global market.

Scottish facility will support the UK to develop new technologies and processes in small molecule pharmaceutical and fine chemical manufacturing. It will also help to enhance capabilities in these forms of manufacturing medicines.

UK Minster Lord Duncan said: “This is great news for the UK’s world-leading Life Sciences sector, and especially important for Scotland in re-enforcing its global reputation as a centre for cutting edge scientific endeavour.

“We need more new medicines to tackle deadly diseases more quickly, and we want to see more of their research and manufacture done here in the UK, bringing highly skilled jobs and greater prosperity with it.”

By 2028, the new centre is expected to extend to £80m in research and development investment by 2028 and create 80 jobs directly by 2023. Additional 90 jobs will be created or retained by firs engaged in the design and building of the centre.

Scottish Government business, innovation and energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “This will help to make Scotland the location of choice for the life sciences community and help us grow the industry’s contribution to the Scottish Economy by 90%, to £8 billion by 2025.”


Image: The new centre will offer businesses support to transform processes and technologies. Photo: courtesy of Crown copyright.