Business Secretary opens Phase 1 of the £34M UK Research Partnership Investment Fund for Pharmaceutical Research at CMAC, University of Strathclyde

Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills visited the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation (CMAC) on Wednesday 8th January to open Phase 1 of the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund for Pharmaceutical Research at the University of Strathclyde. In June, it was formally announced by The Rt Hon George Osbourne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer that CMAC was receiving a cash injection of £ 11.4 million from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), under the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF). This grant is supported with industry and charity contributions of £ 22.8 million. The £34 million project will provide state of the art facilities to allow CMAC to fulfill its vision to accelerate the adoption of continuous manufacturing processes, systems and plants for the production of high-value chemical products to higher quality, at lower cost and more sustainably.

The EPSRC Centre has secured a dedicated new 500 m2 laboratory facility in the new £ 100m Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) at Strathclyde. TIC will enable world-leading academics and researchers to partner in delivering ground-breaking and viable solutions for energy, manufacturing, health and smart cities. The TIC lab will act as a physical hub for the National Centre and will house world-class capabilities for crystallisation, process development, materials characterisation, secondary processing and analysis

The visit by Vince Cable encapsulated the extraordinary success of the Centre since it opened in October 2011. On speaking about the National Centre Dr Cable said: "With over £25 million of new UK Government money, this centre will transform the way in which pharmaceuticals are developed by finding quicker and more sustainable ways of manufacturing drugs and medicines. As part of the UK, Scotland not only benefits from strong research investment, but the rest of the country also benefits from the excellent innovation and entrepreneurial spirit we see in Scottish universities.

"The UK is ranked second only to the US in terms of world-class research. The UK's Life Sciences sector employs almost 170,000 people in more than 4,500 companies across industries such as health, agriculture, medicine and food science. Our continued investment in this area will strengthen our global position, creating new jobs and maintaining the UK as a world leader in medical research."

These are exciting times for the EPSRC Centre, both at the University of Strathclyde and its six partner universities, and this announcement has spurred the start to a prosperous 2014 and beyond.