CMAC, a world-leading medicines manufacturing research centre, is to lead one of UKRI’s newly announced Manufacturing Research Hubs. This critical mass investment will deliver a groundbreaking Industry 5.0 Medicines Manufacturing Research programme delivered by the new EPSRC MediForge Hub. Professor Rachel Smith (Sheffield lead) and Professor Jim Litster from Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield will join this £11M, 7-year award led by the University of Strathclyde in collaboration with partners at University of Leeds, Imperial College London, and Glasgow School of Art.
Professor Rachel Smith said: "We are delighted to bring our expertise in particulate processing and computational modelling for pharmaceutical manufacturing to the exciting new Mediforge Research Hub, and are looking forward to working with our partners to drive digital transformation of medicines manufacturing."
Co-created with industry, the EPSRC MediForge Hub will transform the development and manufacturing of medicines through pioneering an Industry 5.0 manufacturing system for sustainable, resilient, and human-centric medicine production. The programme brings together an array of advanced manufacturing and digital technologies to create a unique cyberphysical research infrastructure to drive the digital transformation of Chemistry, Manufacture and Control (CMC) approaches.
CMC is a key element in ensuring medicines are safe and of consistent high quality but traditional approaches can be inefficient and costly. By developing digital solutions to transform CMC MediForge will assist in tackling contemporary challenges faced by the pharmaceutical manufacturers. By accelerating the development of new, sustainable products and processes the sector will be better able to respond to the needs of patients by producing medicines faster while addressing rising healthcare costs, medicines shortages from fragile global supply chains, and the impacts of the climate crisis.
The Hub will leverage technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins, and collaborative robotics together with state-of-the-art process technologies supporting all stages of medicine production. MediForge will create a dynamic environment that promotes co-creation, open innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration within a MediForge Living Lab environment to empower our research teams and drive the digital transformation of CMC underpinned by a world-first medicine development and manufacturing data fabric and innovative manufacturing research test bed. The Living Lab will foster creative, interdisciplinary, and entrepreneurial skills to develop future Industry 5.0 leaders who are versatile, multi-skilled, confident, and empowered.