A need to find formula for cost-effective drugs

Scotland is making progress towards higher-quality and more cost-effective sustainable production thanks to collaboration across industry and with academia – but there are far more opportunities to grasp.

Clive Badman, who works with both GSK and Strathclyde University, said the NHS spent £15 billion annually on drugs in the UK.

“There is definitely stuff we can do to reduce costs,” he told delegates.

“The process from primary to secondary manufacturing [of new drugs] takes 12 to 24 months. That’s an enormously lengthy supply chain.

“Also, we are not good enough at getting it right first time. We are operating at about 60,000 errors per million. That’s a lot of waste and a lot of extra work and cost because the product that goes out to patients has to be perfect.”

At the same time, said Badman, a growing and ageing world population wanted more affordable healthcare products: “We all want to pay less; I want to pay less. How do we do that?”

Badman said the answer involved leadership, commercialising research, bringing parts of the supply chain which had gone abroad back to Scotland – and scaling up some of the work already happening.

“We need new technology and new ways of working to get things much more quickly to patients,” said Badman.

“It’s too big for one company to do on their own. Large drugs companies were spending £100 million-plus each trying to shorten the supply chain, but they were working in silos and having similar problems.”

The initial answer, in Scotland, was the creation of CMAC (Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallisation) at Strathclyde University – a collaboration between eight large pharma companies.

Pfizer has just become the eighth member, joining GSK, Astrazeneca, Novartis, Bayer, Lilly, Takeda and Roche.

Badman outlined the advantages of continuous manufacturing against old-style batch manufacturing – cost reductions of around 50 per cent, up to 90 per cent less space required, 95 per cent less water and a 50 per cent reduction in carbon footprint, with significant overall benefits in terms of time and cost.

Strathclyde University saw the potential for this pre-competitive manufacturing centre, and the £50m CMAC programme, from 2017-2023, is designed to do four main things – to provide industryleading research, develop crucial skills for the future, deliver important infrastructure and translate to industry.

It was already having a real impact on the industry, with exciting new products emerging into the market, Badman said.

He also highlighted Remedies (Re-configuring Medicines, Endto-end Supply), a clinical and commercial platform to accelerate the translation of promising research into commercial adoption in small molecule pharmaceutical manufacturing.

“It’s been enormously successful. It has created and sustained a lot of jobs, but more importantly, it has created a lot of opportunity,” said Badman.

“We are very poor at using new technology in the life sciences and chemicals industries – but we are now looking at robotics to prepare and dispense drugs which can Clive Badman believes we are not always getting it right first time. reduce the process from up to six 6 months to less than a week, as well as delivering significant cost savings.”

Badman said a Remedies 2 project is on the way, with a much greater focus on digital manufacturing, using diagnostics and devices.

“I think in my lifetime, patients will go to the doctor, who will use a diagnostic tool to prescribe a specific medicine – and ask you to join a compliance regime about how to take the drug and ask you to send information via your phone about what is happening.

“It’s a much more targeted treatment, not just about coming back in a week. It should reduce visits to doctors and hospitals, and reduce cost.”

Badman said a real game changer could be a proposal for a medicine manufacturing innovation centre in Scotland.

Funding bids are with Innovate UK and Scottish Enterprise to create a place to “test products, reduce risks, shorten times and improve quality”.

He added: “More importantly, I see it as the beginning of a science park. IBIOIC want to co-locate an enzymes facility and I think we will see technology suppliers and end users wanting to come.”

Badman concluded with a call to action for young leaders in life sciences to join the industry leadership master class programme: “Technology is great, but if you do not have good leaders, you will not make the progress you need.” n