The UK pharma industry is to set up a road map setting out recommendations on how to protect and grow the respected UK ‘Pharmaceutical Brand’ with a specific focus on Technology and Innovation (T&I).
Historically, the UK has excelled at early innovation in medicines platform research and development, but has lost out to other countries for the final manufacture of these high value products.
The Medicine Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP) now defines via a road map building on strategic technology investments how to prepare the UK for the latest step change opportunities in Advanced Therapies and Complex Medicines and their associated manufacturing requirements.
The creation of Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) capable innovation centres is proposed to serve not only as ‘test beds’ where ideas can be accelerated from the bench to the clinic but also provide an efficient route onto commercial manufacture as required.
Collaboration between academia, industry (small and large) and government is needed in order to achieve this vision.
The proposed road map is not only driven by the goal of pharmaceuticals (Pharma) being a key industry in leading UK economic production but it could also enable an improved healthcare service.
The latter will extend into a partnership with more effective and connected diagnostics and dispensing and the intent would be to offer healthcare that is more predictive and personalised but also participatory and this integrated model could be part of a timely solution to manage some forms of healthcare more efficiently.
With a projected £120.6bn NHS spend in 2017 investing a small percentage of this in these synergistic technologies is a core recommendation. For simplicity ‘Medicines’ throughout this road map have been split into several areas and each is at a different point in its respective lifecycle.
The Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnbership (MMIP) focuses on three strands of medicines manufacturing that build on the UK’s global competitive advantage in research and development:
- Future Treatments (for example, cell and gene therapies)
- Complex Medicines which the UK is not making the most of (ADCs, Oligonucleotides, viral vectors, new vaccines)
- Established Medicines (Small molecules, mAbs, traditional vaccines, therapeutic proteins), including those increasingly outsourced, where the application of process innovation (e.g. continuous processing, digital manufacturing, synthetic biology) creates a strong opportunity for the UK.