Alnwick drugs firm Quotient Sciences officially opens new £6 million manufacturing facility

A ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the £6m refurbishment was held on Friday along with tours of the newly built facility.

Sharon Todd, CEO of SCI (Society of Chemical Industry), who officially opened it, said: “I was very pleased to support our corporate partner Quotient Sciences by opening this impressive facility – especially in Northumberland where I grew up and first developed my own interest in science.

"SCI’s charitable mission is to accelerate science out of the laboratory more quickly – so more people benefit as soon as possible and our community is working on solutions to climate change and global health issues such as ground breaking cancer treatments.

"This facility will help do exactly that – bringing the latest technology to the world to develop new drugs more quickly to improve health.

"Not only, that, this world class investment will also bring highly skilled jobs to the area and hopefully inspire the next generation of children in local schools to become scientists.

"Alnwick should be very proud to have such a market leader in its community.”

Quotient Sciences completed the state-of-the-art expansion in October, with the overall goal to deliver comprehensive integrated support for customers bridging from candidate selection to early clinical development and beyond.

SVP and Head of Candidate Development at Quotient Sciences, Paul Ryan, said: “Expanding our drug substance capabilities was a necessary step in allowing us to better support our customers’ programs as they progress through the development pathway.

"Our Alnwick facility was perfectly placed for expansion with available space and a wealth of local talent.

“This new facility delivers agile capacity to manufacture multi-kilogram quantities of new, novel drugs for medical research, which will allow us to get medicines to patients faster.

“Plus, this celebratory occasion also marks an important milestone for our Alnwick pharmaceutical development site, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022.

"We have a long and successful history in Alnwick, and we fully intend that to carry on with our continued investment and support in the town.”

The completion of this facility will create an additional 80-100 new scientific and technical jobs at the Alnwick site, which currently employs 200 people.