£277m investment to advance UK life sciences manufacturing

A £277 million joint government and industry funding will help four UK life sciences companies to advance life sciences manufacturing projects.

The funding is the first tranche of winning grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF). £17 million in government funding is supported by additional private investment of £260 million. The backing will support over 500 jobs at life sciences companies across the UK.

Advancing life sciences manufacturing

Three of the companies being supported through the first tranche of LSIMF grants are:

Ipsen – £2.7 million received through the government fund will help grow the manufacture of innovative medicines for neurological conditions. This will create 39 new jobs and safeguard a further 37 at its Wrexham facility in North Wales.

Pharmaron – £151 million investment in capital and people will substantially grow operations in Liverpool. This will increase production capacity four-fold for critical gene therapy and vaccine components. It will create 174 jobs, while also safeguarding a further 156. This expansion in Liverpool will help grow the regional cluster of science rich capabilities.

Touchlight – £14 million investment to establish commercial scale manufacture and address the production bottleneck of advanced therapies including mRNA vaccines, gene and cell therapies. It will create 17 jobs and protect a further six, establishing the commercial scale manufacture of ‘doggybone’ DNA in Hampton, London.

“The industry is being transformed by the pace of change: from AI [to] bio manufacturing… and personalised immunotherapies, technologies are converging to create a new era of advanced digital products,” the Minister of State for Science, Research & Innovation, George Freeman commented.

“That requires new types of advances manufacturing plant, which is why we set up the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund,” Freeman explained.

This will build on an additional £10 million for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It will enable the organisation to introduce new, swift approvals systems from 2024. This will accelerate access to technologies including cancer vaccines and AI therapeutics for mental health and already approved treatments.

Building on earlier investment

LSIMF follows on from the Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund (MDMTF) pilot programme launched in April 2021. MDMTF delivered £75 million in joint government and industry investment, while also creating 224 new jobs and protecting 345 existing roles.

The new funding rollout means, combined, the two Funds have delivered £352 million in government and private sector investment into the life sciences sector, while also supporting more than 1000 jobs.