NEWS GSK invests £500 million in new and existing UK facilities


Scil Proteins establishes North American business organisation


Scil Proteins, a specialist in the research, development and production of recombinant proteins, has established a California-based business development organisation to serve demand for its protein production services in North America. The organisation will provide local business support for Scil Protein’s US and Canadian contract manufacture customers. The company has appointed Garry Merry to lead the new organisation. He has extensive experience supporting the business development efforts of several small protein engineering, biopharmaceutical and drug discovery companies in North America, including Sloning Biotechnologies GmbH, Isogenica Ltd and TerraSep LLC. He has also held senior executive positions at several leading life science companies, including Waters, Applied Biosystems and Qiagen. Scil Proteins’ Affilin drug discovery platform will continue to be supported out of the company’s corporate


headquarters in Halle, Germany, which will remain responsible for all other activities related to the company’s contract manufacture business outside North America.


Endo acquires Johnson Matthey ingredient patent


Endo Pharmaceuticals has acquired the US Patent for oxymorphone hydrochloride, the key API in all formulations of its analgesic product OPANA, from Johnson Matthey plc, therefore gaining additional protection for its OPANA franchise until 2029. The patent covers OPANA® ER which is newly designed to be crush resistant, and covers all products that include


oxymorphone manufactured to current FDA specifications.


6


GSK has announced plans to invest more than £500 million in the UK across its manufacturing sites to increase production of key active ingredients for its pharmaceutical products and vaccines. The company has selected Ulverston in Cumbria as the location for the its first new manufacturing facility to be built in the UK for almost 40 years. The company will also make investments at its two


manufacturing sites in Scotland at Montrose and Irvine. It is expected that these investments will create up to 1,000 new jobs over the lifetime of the projects, as well as benefiting the construction industry and companies that supply GSK with services and facilities in the UK. The investments represent one of the largest commitments to the UK life sciences sector in recent years and follow confirmation by the UK Government in its Budget presented this week that it will implement a ‘patent box’ to encourage investment in R&D and related manufacturing in the UK by introducing a lower rate of corporation tax on profits generated from UK-owned intellectual property.


GSK is investing £350 million in its new state-of-the-art biomanufacturing facility at Ulverston. Detailed planning and design of the facility will now begin, with an expected start


The University of Aberdeen is working with Scottish


entrepreneur Dr Derek Douglas CBE to spin out a company to work on the development of new drugs for the treatment of breast cancer, heart failure, diabetes and chronic pain. Signal Pharma will be the first company to spin out of the University’s Kosterlitz Centre for Therapeutics, which is focused on translating biological innovation at the University into new ways of treating, diagnosing and understanding diseases. Dr Douglas is chairman and chief


sp2 Inter-Active March/April 2012


GSK: investing in manufacturing excellence.


date for construction in 2014 or 2015 dependent on portfolio timing and obtaining necessary planning and related consents. Once construction starts, it is likely to take at least a further six years before the plant is fully operational.


GSK is also considering further manufacturing investment at Ulverston that could double the total investment at the site to about £700 million and create further jobs in the longer term, depending on what it termed “continued improvements in the environment for innovation in the UK”.


GSK’s investments in its Scottish facilities amount to more than £100 million. This includes new funding at Montrose to enable the manufacture of key materials for the company’s portfolio of respiratory medicines.


executive of Adam Smith Limited, which has raised more than £100 million for early-stage companies, including university spinouts. Professor Ruth Ross, an expert in pharmacology, and Dr Iain Greig, a medicinal chemist who helped found another University spinout developing new drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis, are the founders of Signal Pharma. The company will develop a portfolio of four drug discovery projects based on new pathways and targets identified by the University of Aberdeen scientists that


Investment will also be made at Montrose to produce aluminium adjuvants, which are high-tech agents used in the manufacture of vaccines to help stimulate the body’s immune system. This is the first time a UK GSK site will participate in the company’s vaccine manufacturing supply chain. At Irvine, GSK will increase production capacity for antibiotics, which it says reflects growing demand for these medicines in emerging markets. Other investments by GSK totalling £80 million will be made at its sites in Ware in Hertfordshire to increase manufacturing capacity for its next-generation respiratory inhalation device and at Barnard Castle in County Durham to establish a dermatology manufacturing centre of excellence.


First company spinout from University of Aberdeen therapeutics centre


appear to be crucial in the development of major diseases. The company is seeking to raise £1.5 million to develop this portfolio of drug discovery programmes, over a period of three years, to the stage at which substantial licensing deals with the pharmaceutical industry could be realised.


Signal Pharma has already received support from Scottish Enterprise High Growth Unit and is seeking investment from private investors and venture capitalists.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48