Question reference: S6W-23232
- Asked by: Kenneth Gibson, MSP for Cunninghame North, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 27 November 2023
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Current status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 3 January 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to encourage high-value medicines manufacturing in Scotland.
Answer
Last year, Scottish Enterprise (SE), working with Innovate UK, invested £15m to establish the state-of-the-art Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre. The facility works with a range of partners in the pharmaceutical industry to conduct research and development, creating leading edge solutions for the manufacture of medicines.
In addition, just a few weeks ago, SE committed around £10m to support the creation of a new oligonucleotides manufacturing innovation centre, that will help pharmaceutical companies to undertake critical phase I and phase II trials to manufacture these highly effective new medicines.
In combination, these centres establish Scotland as a key player in the rapidly growing advanced manufacturing sector and we expect that they will act as a powerful magnet for inward investment and the creation of highly skilled jobs. This is already producing results e.g. Valneva will manufacture its world-first vaccine for the mosquito-bourne Chickungunya virus, in its new manufacturing facility in Livingston.