NATIONAL medical firms driving forward breakthrough treatments are queuing up to start work at a £38m North-East innovation hub, weeks before it opens, bosses have revealed.

The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) says it already has agreements with a number of companies to use its National Biologics Manufacturing Centre, in Darlington.

The building will support firms’ research and development on potentially life-saving cures and vaccines, including cancer treatment, helping experts take concepts to the market place.

The centre is expected to officially open in September.

However, Jonathan Robinson, head of business development in CPI’s biologics division, said the site was already earmarked for work worth more than £5m, with plans in place to attract more.

One of the companies readying itself to use the CPI site is Midatech Biogune, which is focused on insulin patches capable of delivering slow release treatments through strips in the mouth.

Mr Robinson said: “We have got a queue waiting to go into the new Darlington facility.

“People want to work with us, and some of them are significant players in this market.

“We have the space and expertise to help research and test things for the parties involved to de-risk them.”

“These are very highly-skilled jobs for the economy and important for the UK.”

He added the organisation will work with Arecor and Billingham-based FujiFilm Diosynth Biotechnologies on ways to improve the shelf-life of medicines, and support a consortium featuring companies including UCB and Newcastle-based Alcyomics to improve the biologics supply chain and deliver cost effective therapies to patients.

It will also partner the Horizon Discovery Group and the University of Manchester on a project to develop modified cells to help work out which treatments are best for patients.

Referring to the latter, the university’s Professor Alan Dickson added: “Partnering with Horizon and the CPI will enable us to take our research to the next stage, and we’re excited to see where it will lead.”

The CPI’s £38m Biologics Manufacturing Centre will be followed in Darlington by a sister £20m research centre.

The site is expected to open in 2017 and bosses have billed it as a European first, hailing its potential to test and make technology to deliver medicines for specific diseases and patient cases.