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Faster medicine: £56 million innovation centre for Scotland as part of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund

The new centre in Renfrewshire will offer pharmaceutical businesses, both start-ups and multinationals, support to develop processes and technologies to manufacture medicines which will assist future generations.

The innovation centre aligns with the healthcare challenge from the modern Industrial Strategy; with the project receiving £13 million from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The funding is provided by UK Research and Innovation through Innovate UK.

This is a great boost for small businesses in the pharmaceutical sector looking to innovate and introduce new technologies, allowing them to contribute further to the wealth of the economy. As small businesses account for 47% of revenue in the UK economy, it is important that government support is accessible to these businesses to aid future growth and success.

What is the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund?                                             

The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund is the government’s commitment to strengthen the UK science and business innovation society through boosting funding in research and development by £4.7 billion over 4 years. This is delivered by UK Research and Innovation, the focus point of the fund is to ensure that research and innovation takes centre-stage in the Industrial Strategy.

Government has worked with businesses and academics to identify the core industrial challenges, where:

  • The UK has a world leading research base and businesses ready to innovate
  • There is a large or fast growing and sustainable global market

The challenges are aligned to the 4 grand challenges, which focuses on ensuring that the UK takes advantage of major global changes, improving people’s lives and the country’s productivity.

Find out more about the different challenges here.

We work with the UK government to deliver a number of key public sector contracts to support SMEs, including the delivery of specialist support to help small businesses to innovate by bringing new products and services to market. Find out more about our work in the public sector