BIOCENTRE TO DEVELOP NEW MEDICINES

A new ultra-clean production facility that uses living organisms to develop tomorrow’s medicines has been officially opened in Speke, Liverpool, further strengthening the region’s world-class reputation for biopharmaceutical innovation. The National Biomanufacturing Centre(NBC) will help new and existing companies move good research ideas from the laboratory to the global marketplace within the right regulatory framework.

Located on the Estuary Business Park, the centre has attracted major overseas interest and has been described as a “benchmark and showcase for British science,” by Dr Crawford Brown, Chief Executive of Eden Biodesign, the NBC’s commercial operator. Funding for the £34 million project, which has been hailed as the first of its kind in the world, has been provided by the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA), the EU’s Objective One programme and the Department of Trade and Industry.

Some of industry’s big corporate players including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Avecia have provided helpful advice on setting up the facility. Although biologics, which includes biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, have been around for 25 years it’s only recently they have become viable as commercial products. They currently account for 17% (50 billion dollars) of the medicines market but industry experts predict their share could rise to 70%in the future.

MISSING LINK

Chemical compounds are used to make drugs in traditional pharmaceutical manufacture whereas the NBC’s processes use living cells – mammalian, viral and microbial-like mini factories to make biologic products.

The centre provides a full range of services necessary to take a novel biopharmaceutical from proof of concept through to small batch production for early–stage clinical trials. Its client focus will be small and medium size companies (SMEs), research and charity organisations, the universities and the NHS.

The NBC was borne out of an idea in the late 1990s by Professor Julian Crampton, a former Liverpool academic, and has been brought to fruition largely through the dedication and drive of Dr. Linda Magee, Head of Bionow, the Northwest Biotechnology cluster organisation established by the NWDA. Her contribution won widespread praise at the opening ceremony. She describes the centre as the “missing link” that should speed up the lab-to-market process. “It’s a beacon for the wider pharmaceutical community in the region and we expect it to have an influential role in attracting inward investment to the Northwest.”

An Access Fund of just under £3 million has been established to support the work of the NBC and is already assisting SMEs purchase services from Eden Biodesign. Grants of up to £70,000 are available for eligible companies with higher allocations for those located in Merseyside. One recipient company, Onyvax, has started work on an ovarian cancer vaccine while a second successful applicant, Aquapharm, is using the NBC’s expertise to develop products from marine sources.

The NBC will enhance Liverpool’s drive to become one of Europe’s premier biopharmaceutical centres. Around 2,000people are currently employed in the sector in south Liverpool, the highest concentration anywhere in the EU.

EXEMPLAR PROJECT

Opening the state-of-the-art building, NWDA Chairman Bryan Gray, a former chemistry graduate, called it one of the first “building blocks” in an emerging industry. “It’s an exemplar project of co-operation between the public and private sectors”.

Apart from offering advice and guidance to early-stage companies about moving from research into development, Eden Biodesign aims to expand training opportunities with a view to doubling its workforce to 100 over the next two years.

It is joining forces with Liverpool John Moores University to establish a Bioprocess Summer School in 2007 to resolve some of the skills deficiencies in the sector. The partners hope to move towards an apprenticeship in Bioprocessing that can be rolled out across the UK.