National Manufacturing Debate 2012

Yesterday saw the 3rd annual National Manufacturing Debate, held by the School of Applied Sciences at Cranfield University. The topic was "Enhancing the supply chain for growth". The event comprised 8 excellent speakers ranging from Ian Gray of the Technology Strategy Board  (TSB) and Martyn Pellew, President of the BCC to John Bolton of Tata Steel and Dr. Victor Higgs, MD of Applied Nanodetectors.

The debate in the afternoon was supported by a panel of these people and others, and covered the topic well. The presence of Victor and John Bolton as businesses was supported by Tim Routsis of the Cosworth Group as the type of target companies that the event was designed around. Next year, I hope that we can encourage more manufacturing and supply chain companies to attend.

The event saw the launch of the TSB's High Value Manufacturing Strategy 2012-2015 document,  in which Pharmaceuticals is identified as a high growth, high R&D intensity sector... just the ideal sweetspot!

Audioboo about ICH Q11

Audioboo on ICH Q11

Listen to my one minute introduction to the new ICH Guideline, number 11. Click on ICH Quality Guidelines page to access the document itself.

listen to ‘ICH Q11 the latest guideline’ on Audioboo

UK Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

At the Houses of Parliament last month, I met with two people from the Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group to discuss raising the profile of Pharmaceutical  Manufacturing in the UK Manufacturing Sector. If you are part of that Sector, read the following statements with pride.

In the UK, the Pharma Industry:

o   Employs 72,000 people directly, plus 250,000 in related industries

o   Generates £14.6B in  exports

o   Contributes £8.4B into the national GDP (out of a total Manufacturing of £140B)

o   Creates a Trade surplus of £4.3B

o   Over 12% of National Total Manufacturing Gross Value added is due to "Pharma, Chemicals and Bioscience" Sector, second only to "Food, Beverages and Tobacco."

o   That Sector has the 2^nd largest sector growth in Manufacturing in the last 15 years , 2^nd only to  the "Aircraft, rail, marine,and motorcycles" Sector.