Looking Back
LOUGHBOROUGH’S 3M is celebrating 50 years at its Loughborough Derby Road site and has sent these intriguing old photographs to Looking back to mark the event and hopefully spark some memories.
The science-based technology company 3M have celebrated the milestone achievement of 50 years of continuous healthcare manufacturing.
Built on the grounds of an aircraft hangar on the perimeter of a wartime airfield, the original Derby Road factory took two years to complete and was commissioned by Riker Laboratories, a company acquired by 3M several decades later.
It was opened by the-then chancellor of Loughborough University, Lord Pilkington and housed 150 operators, engineers and laboratory staff producing tablets, capsules and fine chemicals.
Production facilities for pressurised metered dose inhalers for asthma and other respiratory diseases, for which the site is best known, were added later.
The Derby Road site has seen considerable expansion of its initial footprint, one of the most significant developments being in 1997, when a £12m investment by 3M doubled the size of the original factory and distribution centre.
Today, the site is a state-of-the art contract pharmaceutical and medical product manufacturing facility.
If you have any memories, or photographs of your time at the site you’d like to share with Looking Back readers please contact Andy Rush on 01509 635802.
E-mail andy.rush@reachplc.com