ANDREW Scaife takes a pause, stopping himself just in time.

Sitting in a boardroom, fingers poised over a keyboard ready to flick through a slideshow, he’s extolling the virtues of the North-East as a world-leading area for unlicensed medicines.

He is, however, quick enough to add a caveat to his claim.

“Probably”, he says, with a smile.

But he has a point.

Mr Scaife’s company, Quantum Pharma, is known for its work across the medical sector, particularly its unlicensed products.

The firm, which employs about 250 people at its base in Burnopfield, near Stanley, County Durham, produces medicines to respond to a unique prescription.

Such a niche focus means it can alter the potency of a drug, assess and re-assess ingredients to counter potential patient allergies, and change the way medicine is distributed, be it through a tablet or a liquid.

Just like a Savile Row tailor pores over an individual’s requirements for their lavish outfit, Quantum does the same with treatments, to help pharmacy chains, wholesalers and hospitals look after peoples’ needs.

Central to its successes is an unwavering commitment to customer service.

It is a point Mr Scaife, Quantum’s chief executive, keeps repeating, and the company’s back office set-up offers clear proof.

A 60-strong customer services team handles orders and enquiries every day for its specials and looks after about 1,600 calls daily, helping process around 1,700 orders, which are made or stocked on site, or obtained from a third party supplier.

Allied to its ability to make one-off medicines, which can go through as many as 150 quality checks, the company also has the capability to get them to patients quickly, with orders taken late evening typically with their intended recipient by the next morning.

When you factor Quantum’s portfolio of more than 30,000 products and years of experience into the equation, you can see where Mr Scaife’s buoyancy comes from.

“We offer the best service and the best products we can”, he says.

“That is what our customers want.

“We make one-offs; we get an order, make it and send it out.

“The average price of an unlicensed medicine is about £100, but it can cost the NHS a lot more to look after a patient.

“In some cases, we will only have to make it once.

“We are at the real niche end of the industry, and if we do not get products on time it can have serious consequences.”

The stereotyped image of a drugs factory is one of tablets, millions and millions of them in all colours and sizes, being pushed and shoved around a production line into blister packs.

Quantum is different.

Its manufacturing process uses a number of traditional techniques.

As I walk the plant, men and women, bedecked in blue suits, their eyes behind goggles, hands in white gloves, mouths covered by masks, tend to orders with pestle and mortars, weighing scales and mixing equipment.

I watch as a worker takes cigarettes from packs, lining up the contents ready to make methadone reefers, while another awaits clearance from a quality checker to carry on work with a powdery substance.

Paperwork is filled in, boxes ticked, notes made.

The batches are then placed into waiting brown washing up bowls to go through a hatch, ready for more checks and ultimately delivery.

Such equipment may seem rudimentary in a technological age, but it is particularly effective.

Continuing my tour of Quantum’s factory, I pass through its warehouse, which can send out about 1,200 products a day, before arriving at the aseptic area.

This section of the plant is where the company carries out work on cancer treatments.

In front of me, three men, hidden under protective clothing, are at work in a clean room.

This area prepares drugs designed to go straight into the blood stream.

It is all done under strict sterile conditions, with each item, again, unique to a patient, made for intravenous use.

Wearing a white suit, white shoes, goggles, a hairnet and two pairs of gloves, I watch as hands, pushed into large, thick black gloves, make lung cancer treatments.

Computer screens give constant updates as products are prepared for syringes and infusion bags, which allow patients to continue treatment at home.

On the other side of the wall, a small team check and then re-inspect the drugs under lights and different backdrops to scrutinise for any discrepancies.

As we leave, a member of staff tells me how a patient recently sent a box of chocolates in thanks for all of Quantum’s work; the human touch in an environment of sterility.

Back in the boardroom, white suit and accompanying equipment discarded, Mr Scaife continues outlining Quantum’s successes, and its continued growth.

Earlier this month, the firm bought rival NuPharm Group in a near £13m deal.

The company says the agreement for the North Wales business will allow it to make more of its own lines, reduce third party arrangements, and invest in new equipment to increase production.

It also says the enlarged business will introduce batch manufacturing and licensed product making, and allow the company to enter new markets while reducing costs, with Quantum a previous customer of NuPharm.

But it’s not all about acquisitions.

Mr Scaife doesn’t flatly rule out further moves in the future, but his focus, for the time being anyway, is elsewhere.

True, since Quantum floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) last year, its stock has quite literally risen.

That move, which raised £106m, was believed to be the largest float on the AIM’s pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector in 2014, and the region’s biggest ever initial public offering on the AIM.

However, Mr Scaife, tieless, with the neck of his white shirt open, switches the attention to Biodose.

Reaching behind into a cabinet, he pulls out a tray.

Made up of 28 individual sealed pots, each one holds a tablet and they rattle and roll against the plastic as he picks up the tray and puts it back down in front of him.

Capable of holding both solids and liquids in the same dosage for the first time, Mr Scaife says Biodose’s liquid offering makes it the only manufacturer able to offer treatments in such a way.

It also means patients, particularly the elderly, infirm, or those with motor skills difficulties, can see when liquid doses have, or have not, been taken.

However, Quantum is taking it further, with pilot tests being carried out on remote monitoring of people, to make sure they are regularly consuming their medicine.

The system uses technology to flash when its user is late taking their drugs, and escalates up to a phone call and even the calling of a nurse to check on the person.

Mr Scaife said: “We are growing across all parts of the business, but Biodose is a strong area of growth for us, and it is a unique product.

“It is the only one of its type in the world that can take liquids.

“It is prepared for the individual patient, and is better for the care homes, which use them, but it is also better for the patients themselves.

“It means that people are more likely to take their medication, and that they do not need to be in and out of hospital.”

Outside, the weather is stuttering again, grey clouds are looming large.

Somewhat apt then that Mr Scaife’s next slide comes to Greece, or more precisely Quantum’s previous deal to take on Lamda, which provides outsourced and development services to customers across various part of Europe, from laboratories in Athens.

Greece’s economic woes are well documented; the gloomy County Durham backdrop a perfect reflection of the mood felt in the country.

But Mr Scaife says Quantum isn’t worrying too much about Lamda.

He said: “There is the risk, but we went into it with our eyes open.

“We had already done our planning, the opportunities for that business are great, and they have customers in Germany and Sweden.

“We are keeping a close eye on the situation in Greece, but everyone is ok.

“The acquisition was important and exciting, and it gives us a footprint in Europe, which we can use as a platform for overseas expansion.”

It’s a footprint that will soon turn into a well-worn path if Mr Scaife has his way.

Expect the world to see a lot more of Quantum’s unlicensed medicines, and no probably about it.