UK’s Center for Process Innovation Invests in Biologics and Formulation Projects

The Center for Process Innovation (CPI), the process industry element of the UK government's national manufacturing strategy
called the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, has announced separate investments for a biologics factory of the future and a innovation center.

In the first project, CPI has announced an investment of £20 million ($34.15 million) to create a “Biologics Factory of the Future.”Located at Central Park, Darlington, the UK, the new facility will locate and integrate alongside CPI's £38-million ($64.89 million) National Biologics Manufacturing Center, which is currently under construction on the same site and due for completion in 2015. Due to open in 2017, the new facility will allow organizations to develop and test medicine manufacturing technologies that can be directly applied in the new and emerging stratified and personalized therapeutic supply chains.

The Â£20-million ($34.15-million) investment includes a £10-million ($17.07 million) award by the Tees Valley Unlimited Local Enterprise Partnership as part of the Local Growth Fund and its Growth Deal. The announcement comes as part of a £379-million ($647.01 million) investment into the region from the UK government's flagship Local Growth Fund, which is designed to create jobs and stimulate economic growth in the UK.

The Â£10-million ($17.07 million) investment has been awarded by the Tees Valley Local Enterprise Partnership, which, alongside the UK government, has identified personalized medicine as of strategic importance to the UK. It is intended that CPI will enable the development of the process technologies and facility designs to deliver personalized medicines. It will achieve this through integration and simplification of process technologies to enable production at smaller scales and with rapid changeover between products.

​In a separate announcement, the North East Local Enterprise Partnership has announced an investment of £7.4 million ($12.64 million) into the CPI to develop a new innovation center focused on formulated products as part of the Local Growth Fund. The investment will be matched with £7 million ($11.95 million) from industry. The center will cover formulations used in both consumer and industrial products, including pharmaceuticals. The new center will focus specifically on the areas of radical product and process design, which are two of the major strategic themes identified by UK industry in a 2013 consultation report.

The new center will be located at NETPark in County Durham and will provide facilities and expertise to help companies to develop, prove, prototype, and scale up new formulated products. The new facility will form part of the National Formulation Center, which is currently being developed by the Knowledge Transfer Network and CPI and aims to create a hub that co-ordinates national activity and through which companies across the UK can gain access to the strategic development program. The center seeks to capitalized on academic and industrial expertise and infrastructure  involving particle design and colloid science, modelling and simulation, measurement, and high-throughput automation. The center will build on CPI's existing expertise in both formulated product and process designand will collaborate closely with universities and companies in Northeastern UK.

Source: Center for Process Innovation (biologics) and Center for Process Innovation (formulation)

 

 

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