A multi-million pound 'biologics factory of the future' is being built by Teesside-based Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), creating scores of jobs.
The centre is investing £20m in the facility at Central Park, Darlington, which follows on from a £38m National Biologics Manufacturing Centre (NBMC) on the same site.
Tees Valley Unlimited (TVU), the area’s Local Enterprise Partnership, has awarded the project £10m as part of the Local Growth Fund and their Growth Deal.
Due to open in 2017, the new facility will allow organisations to develop medicines in the radical shift from “one size fits all” prescriptions to a more personalised approach to patient treatment. The new centre will create 20 permanent jobs and a further 100 during construction.
Established medicine supply chains are currently set up to deliver large batches of a single therapy, to treat multiple patients with the same disease.
But it’s all about to change, thanks to leaps in DNA sequencing technology and an understanding of causes of disease and a person’s underlying genetic factors.
Biotechnology is a fast-growing market and is revolutionising the research and development of new medicines.
It already accounts for 10-15% of the current pharmaceutical market and the sector is outperforming the market as a whole.
Nigel Perry, CEO of CPI, said: “The new facility will significantly increase the UK’s manufacturing capability in biologics, keeping us ahead in the global race and strengthening the UK’s position as the location of choice for life sciences companies”.
