Announced yesterday as part of a wider roll-out of eight other EPSRC Centres for Innovative Manufacturing, the facility aims to improve the manufacture of macromolecular medicines, which are more costly to manufacture and use than conventional medicines.
According to UCL, if the manufacturing process and design of the final medicine are poor then costs rise and patient access is restricted due to budget pressures on customers such as the NHS.
To help overcome this, UK companies will be able to use the centre to select drug candidates for clinical trials, both on the basis of clinical efficacy manufacturing feasibility, which is expected to result in reduced costs.
Led by Prof Nigel Titchener-Hooker, the centre — which has received an EPSRC grant of £4.9m, with a further £3.9m provided by industry partners — will deliver proof-of-concept tools, demonstrated against a test set of user-defined products.
The eight other centres — engaged in research in areas including composites, intelligent automation and additive manufacturing — will share £40.1m, plus contributions from industry.
A High-Value Manufacturing Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC), announced today, will play a key role in taking the research from the EPSRC Centres to the next stage of the innovation chain.
New EPSRC centres for innovative manufacturing
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Ultra Precision will create ultra-high-precision manufacturing tools that can make products with nanoscale precision. Led by Cranfield University. The EPSRC grant value will total £5.2m, with an additional £1.2m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Industrial Sustainability will rapidly reduce the resource and energy intensity of the production of existing goods, and investigate options for a radical redesign of the industrial system. Led by Cranfield University. The grant will total £4.5m, with an additional £1.3m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Through-Life Engineering Services will design high-value systems such as aircraft engines that require less engineering service and incur less whole-life cost. Led by Cranfield University. The grant will total £4.8m, with an additional £3.5m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites will develop the next generation of composite manufacturing processes based on low-cost, short cycle times, efficiency and sustainability. Led by University of Nottingham. The grant will total £4.9m, with an additional £1.8m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Intelligent Automation will capture and advance human skills and develop automated processes. Led by Loughborough University. The grant will total £4.8m, with an additional £334,000 from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Additive Manufacturing will combine multi-material, multi-functional devices with amalgamated electrical, optical and structural properties in a single manufacturing process using additive manufacturing. Led by Loughborough University. The grant will total £4.9m, with an additional £3.2m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallisation will take forward the move from batch manufacturing to fully continuous manufacturing processes for high-value chemical products. This will lead to higher levels of quality, lower-cost and more sustainable production. Led by University of Strathclyde. The grant will total £4.9m, with an additional £1.8m from industry partners.
• The EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology will create and develop a ‘factory on the machine’ linking measurement and production to minimise cost and allow ever-increasing complexity and quality in manufacturing. Led by University of Huddersfield. The grant will total £4m, with an additional £3.2m from industry partners.
Source: EPSRC
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