NEWS
US Consul General visits Almac headquarters Gregory S. Burton, the new US
SOCMA News
SOCMA displeased with US Senate TSCA legislation move
SOCMA has commended members of a key Senate environmental panel for addressing shortcomings in the USA’s chemical control law, while expressing concern over advancing legislation in the middle of bipartisan negotiations. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works voted to approve an amendment from Senator Frank Lautenberg to the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011, thereby ending what appeared to be a constructive bipartisan process to draft legislation on a clean slate. “Senator Lautenberg says he wants a bipartisan bill, but the markup says otherwise,” said Bill Allmond, SOCMA’s Vice President of Government and Public Relations. “Progress was being made by both sides toward a workable approach, only to snatch defeat from the jaws of a bipartisan victory.” Allmond added that the amended legislation is an improvement over the previous version and does address some key provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), such as separating the inventory of chemicals into an active and inactive list. It also has more targeted information requirements, and includes processor reporting and puts more emphasis on utilising existing information. The amended version also requires prioritisation and improves the treatment of US intellectual property and new chemicals, both of which, SOCMA says, are essential . SOCMA remains committed to continuing the progress made this year work to update the chemical control law.
Consul General in Northern Ireland, visited Almac’s headquarters in Craigavon last month to receive an overview of the company’s latest investments in the USA, specifically the latest $10 million state-of-the-art commercial packaging facility in Audubon, Pennsylvania. Almac is opening the 100,000 sq ft new facility in Audubon to service its customers across the USA. The new facility has already been awarded contracts for two products that will exceed 1.5m bottles per annum. Tablets and capsules will be manufactured in Almac’s Craigavon facility and shipped to Audubon for commercial packing into bottles for distribution to the US market. State-of-the-art packaging lines will enable Almac to process blisters, bottles, wallets and sterile packaged product for the US market.
The US Consul General took a tour of the Craigavon site and was briefed on the latest investments in the USA, a market
Almac CEO Alan Armstrong (left) with the new US Consul General in Northern Ireland, Gregory S. Burton.
that represents around half of Almac’s total biotech and pharmaceuticals business. “Almac’s latest investment in the US underscores Northern Ireland’s capacity to contribute to the global economy in high-value sectors like pharmaceutical development. The company plays an important role in my home state of Pennsylvania and I was grateful for the opportunity of
viewing their cutting-edge facility in Craigavon,” commented Gregory S. Burton. Further to the Audubon investment, Almac is also in the process of doubling the size of its analytical labs in its new North American Headquarters in Souderton, Pennsylvania, which was opened last year by Senator George Mitchell.
OGT awarded €3 million in EU clinical research grants
The next generation sequencing service team of Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) has been awarded two EU- funded clinical research grants worth €3 million. OGT will provide genomic analysis and commercialisation services for two international studies, EUCLIDS and PATHSEEK.
EUCLIDS (EU Life-threatening Infectious Disease Study), is a five-year, large-scale study to identify genomic variants that determine susceptibility to and severity of life-threatening bacterial infections in children,
The Wellcome Trust has announced funding of more than £11 million to two research groups at the University of Dundee, UK. A team led by Professor Irwin McLean has been awarded about £5.9 million to
10 sp2 Inter-Active July/August 2012
including meningococcal and pneumococcal cohorts. OGT has been awarded a grant of €1.1 million to perform high- throughput genomic analysis for the study, including whole exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, methylation analysis and microRNA analysis. OGT has also been awarded €1.9 million to design sequence enrichment methods and compare sequencing platforms for the PATHSEEK project, a three-year study led by Professor Judy Breuer at University College London, which will demonstrate
Wellcome Trust funds University of Dundee groups
help establish a Centre for Dermatology and Genetic Medicine, building on the University’s reputation for research into the causes of skin diseases and developing new medicines for inherited skin
the potential of next generation sequencing technologies in clinical microbiology labs to enable the detection of pathogens directly from clinical samples and the early detection of drug resistant mutations. The study will look at infections with clear unmet clinical need or that pose a global risk factor, including HIV, mycobacterium tuberculosis, hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV), and influenza A. PATHSEEK will also investigate two host pharmacogenomics biomarkers that predict response to therapy for HCV and HIV.
disorders. The Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression (GRE), led by Professors Angus Lamond and Julian Blow, has been given a £5.4 million grant. The Centre studies the cell biology of gene expression and chromosome biology.
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