Engineers win prestigious prize for work with pharmaceuticals giant
Monday 5 November 2012
Experts at the University of Surrey have won a prestigious award for their work helping to create a radical change and improvement in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
For the second year running, the University of Surrey won a top prize at the annual Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) Awards Ceremony, winning the Outstanding Achievement in Chemical Engineering Award.
On this occasion, Surrey Chemical & Process Engineering was a partner in the top prize winning team, led by GlaxoSmithKline and including GEA, Siemens, Sagentia & the Universities of Newcastle & Warwick.
The winning entry, which also earned the Chemical Engineering Project of the Year Award, demonstrated that tablet production can be improved significantly using new techniques.
The new process ensures consistency, reducing costs by 20%, the process equipment footprint by a factor of ten and the capital cost by a factor of three.
Professor Jonathan Seville, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, said: “The basic principles of making pharmaceutical tablets haven’t changed in 200 years – until now!
“We have demonstrated that it is possible to move away from time-consuming and expensive batch processing – essentially “cookery” - to a fully integrated and closely controlled process which gives excellent product consistency.
“The process has a much smaller footprint and lower environmental emissions per unit of product, while being much more flexible in operation.”
IChemE CEO David Brown says the range of award winners highlight the diversity of the profession: “Chemical engineers are working all over the world on innovative projects and finding solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing society today – a growing demand for secure and sustainable energy, access to clean and plentiful water supplies, food and nutrition and societal health and well being.
"The IChemE Awards give us a platform to recognise some of the best work taking place all over the world throughout the chemical and process engineering community.”
More than 500 chemical engineers and invited guests from around the world attended the event in Manchester, UK which was hosted by journalist and TV presenter Colin Murray.
Editors' Notes
The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) is the global professional membership organisation for people with relevant experience or an interest in chemical engineering.
