CPI and 24 partners open £88m manufacturing innovation center
The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) announced the facility was completed following £88m ($107m) of investment that was sourced from 24 different partner organizations.
The facility, known as the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre, is based in Glasgow, Scotland, and the CPI stated that it had been created to find solutions to ‘the biggest challenges’ in medicines development and manufacturing.
One of the objectives for the plant is to develop more sustainable manufacturing processes, which Dave Tudor, MD of medicines manufacturing, biologics and quality, at CPI, stated would involve looking into reductions in waste and improving the industry’s carbon footprint through more efficient manufacture.
Another focus will be technology translation for small molecule drug manufacture, such as by creating a novel, digitally-twinned continuous direct compression platform to apply to oral solid dose formulation.
At the same time as announcing the completion of the facility, CPI also added a new partner to the project. Atos, a provider of digital solutions, would join the partners at the facility and also contribute a ‘significant investment’ in the center.
Samantha Jones, SVP of healthcare and life sciences, Northern Europe, at Atos, said, “We are eager to take the opportunity to collaborate with members of the consortium to deliver on the key challenges facing the industry to advance innovative and sustainable pharma manufacturing processes.”
Atos joins the six founding partners of the center: AstraZeneca and GSK, CPI, the University of Strathclyde, UK Research and Innovation, and Scottish Enterprise. In addition, a number of other partners have joined from the pharmaceutical industry, including Pfizer, Novartis, and Alnylam. Further contributors include PwC, Siemens and Applied Materials, among others.
Tudor added that the next phase of development for the newly opened facility will be centered on inviting companies into the new plant.
The facility itself is a fully good manufacturing practice (GMP) compliant space, located in the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland.
CPI outlined that it expects the center to generate £200m in its first five years, and that it will create 100 jobs for the area.
Scottish Government Business Minister, Ivan McKee, stated that Scottish Enterprise had provided £16m of the total raised to build the center, and that the construction would present an opportunity to attract international and domestic manufacturing business to the area.
