The SMMIP focuses on industry-led innovation towards more sustainable medicines manufacturing in the UK. The vision is to transform pharmaceutical manufacturing by integrating robotics, automation, Al, and data-driven approaches to create sustainable, future-ready factories.
This Innovate UK initiative aims to develop next-generation manufacturing techniques and improve downstream processing to enhance circularity by recovering products, reagents, and solvents. By addressing environmental impact, efficiency, and quality control, these technologies will meet the demand for sustainable manufacturing processes.
The Grand Challenge
The industry has been slow to adopt robotics and automation, but Innovate UK aim to change this by increasing the use of collaborative robots (cobots) and automation in both R&D and manufacturing. Robotics integration will boost precision and efficiency, reducing energy consumption and waste. They will also develop self-optimising reactors and employ high throughput experimentation to minimise material use and time, feeding data back into Al for further optimisation.
Labman, alongside AstraZeneca UK Ltd (project lead) and Britest will explore next-generation pharmaceutical manufacturing and continuous processing techniques, which offer sustainability benefits despite existing challenges. New reactor types and advanced downstream processing techniques, such as membrane-based technologies, will be developed to accommodate diverse drug processes, minimise waste, and ensure efficient extraction of high-quality products.
Robust data collection through Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) and Al will underpin the future factory, reducing environmental impact, improving efficiency, and enabling automation. A consortium of large Pharma, SMEs, and academia will ensure the successful adoption of these innovations, reducing emissions and waste in the sector.
AstraZeneca led and won the bid for the initial expression of intertest phase where we have won a share of the £1.3M seed funding to support consortium building and the preparation of proposals for large-scale Grand Challenges in sustainable medicines manufacturing.
Building the Consortium
AstraZeneca is open to potential consortium members with technical expertise in:
- Automation for pharmaceutical drug substance and drug product
- Al to enhance development and manufacturing
- Disruptive processing technologies for DS and DP - both small molecule and biologics in scope
- New technologies to support downstream processing including product purification; solvent recycling; waste valorisation.
AstraZeneca is open to potential consortium members to share knowledge on:
- Regulatory aspects of sustainability
- Sustainability metrics.
Project lead: AstraZeneca UK Ltd
Partners: Britest, Labman
Funded amount: £99,662
For more information visit:
https://iuk-business-connect.org.uk/news/funding-to-build-a-sustainable-future-for-medicines-manufacturing/
Or contact:
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