Led by CPI, Scotland’s new Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Innovation Centre of Excellence is addressing issues with oligos manufacturing. The site in Renfrewshire is set to begin operations later this year and be fully complete by 2025. Funding has been granted by both the UK Government and Scottish Enterprise, which have each contributed £10 million.

CPI’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre has already done much to advance oligos production. The new centre will foster cross-industry partnerships between experts from the public sector and academia, with a focus on sustainability.

Sustainable oligonucleotide manufacturing methods

Oligos are still manufactured using the same processes developed in the 1970s. These require huge quantities of chemical solvents that result in tens of thousands of litres of liquid waste. As a result, the limited number of oligos products have a disproportionately high environmental impact. 

Currently, the United States and China lead in oligos production, but the new Scottish centre could challenge this. Investment in the Renfrewshire facility will establish Scotland as a world-leading oligos manufacturing hub.

To solve the environmental challenges behind oligos manufacturing, CPI’s Grand Challenge 3 is looking at sustainable alternative processes.

Current technology can only produce small batches of oligos at a time. Yet just one week of manufacturing requires as much as four tankers worth of solvent. Grand Challenge 3 is pursuing liquid phase synthesis to produce larger oligos batches with reduced volumes of solvents. 

“We recognise that there is no magic bullet to making them more sustainable, cheaper and scalable,” adds Cassey. “You need a portfolio of options to pick the right solution for the right molecules.”

Researchers are exploring solutions that include recycling the chemical solvent required and producing oligos enzymatically rather than chemically. Once oligos can be produced less wastefully, it will be simpler to scale up manufacturing and enable more patients to benefit.

Scotland’s new Centre for Excellence also aims to accelerate drug manufacturing timelines to expand treatments for a range of health conditions.

Building partnerships to accelerate the manufacture of oligos  

The partnerships behind the new centre are essential to advancing oligos research. The new facility will build on the connection established between academia, government, and major pharmaceutical organisations by Scotland’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre (MMIC).

CPI is responsible for running the oligos centre, and benefits from links to the University of Strathclyde, GSK, and AstraZeneca. Other important backers include Scottish Enterprise and the UK Office for Life Sciences. The support of these partners will make the centre one of the leading pharma innovation centres in the world.

Alongside manufacturing oligos more sustainably, the Renfrewshire centre’s other equally important mission is to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

“It’s often the SMEs who are at the forefront of developing [new] therapies,” explains Andrew Henderson, Senior Manager at Scottish Enterprise’s Life Sciences Industry team. “But they’re at the back of the queue when it comes to having that manufactured for them."

“A number of organisations have approached the Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre and specifically said: ‘Can you help us to get manufacturing of these [products] in the future? Because we are struggling.”

The aim is for the new oligos centre to address this imbalance by partnering with MMIC. Established in collaboration with major pharmaceutical companies, MMIC is equipped with all the high-end equipment these businesses require. The team seeks to leverage this technology in support of SMEs to foster further innovation in the field.

The Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Innovation Centre of Excellence will be a regional and worldwide manufacturing hub, attracting more companies to Scotland. It is anticipated that the centre will drive further industry growth across the country. The brightest Scottish and international talent will develop into a team of oligos specialists. Scottish universities will serve as a further talent pool while extending the centre’s global reach.

In a sign of Scotland’s expertise in oligos, the country hosted CPI’s second Oligonucleotide Manufacturing Symposium in April 2024. The event provided a glimpse of the dynamic ecosystem in development. Host speakers from industry, academia, and government in Scotland discussed challenges and solutions in oligos production.

In partnership with the MMIC, the oligos centre will be central in driving change in pharma. The oligos centre will help develop treatments, and even cures, for the most serious diseases for years to come in Scotland.