The increase of pharma manufacturing capacity in emerging markets, such as India and China, poses a threat to production in established regions and the consortium has been set up to counter this.

By bringing together partners from industry and academia, and obtaining a financial injection from a government funded body, the consortium is aiming to manufacture pharmaceuticals at 70 per cent of the capital cost of conventional technology.

“Traditional tablet manufacturing process has evolved into one that is easy to regulate but very manual and therefore expensive to operate in western economies”, explained Adrian Howson, head of pharmaceutical process at Sagentia, a member of the consortium.

Improving pharmaceutical production precision, productivity and mass yield is intended to ensure the UK remains competitive “against a backdrop where manufacturing often gravitates to countries with lower overall costs”, added Iain Gray, CEO of the Technology Strategy Board, which funded the initiative.

Gray also emphasised that it is “important to ensure that companies continue to innovate during the downturn to ensure a successful recovery for the UK economy”. To help achieve this funding has been awarded to 33 projects.

GlaxoSmithKline, GEA Pharma Systems, Siemens Industrial Automation and Drives Technology, University of Warwick, Newcastle University and Sagentia make up the consortium.

Funding was awarded by The Technology Strategy Board as part of a £24m ($40m) investment in high value manufacturing projects.