Research facility creates 65 jobs in Deeside

A £2.7m pharmaceutical facility, which will create 65 new research and development jobs and safeguard 19 more, is to be opened in Deeside.

Quay Pharma is a specialist in testing and designing new products for the industry.

The industrial park site, near Shotton, will be opened by Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones, who announced £784,000 in funding for the facility last year.

The healthcare and bioscience sector employs 15,000 people in Wales.

Mr Jones said the sector was worth £1.3 billion every year to Wales.

He added: "I am therefore especially pleased that we have been able to offer assistance to the company to facilitate their expansion programme and I hope that their research and development funding will be of further assistance."

Quay Pharma will also use the site to develop new forms of tablets and capsules.

The company was established in 2001 by Professor Mike Rubinstein, former director of the School of Pharmacy at Liverpool John Moores University, and Dave Patterson, a north Wales businessman who has had other pharmaceutical businesses in the area for the last 15 years.

The company was originally based on the Wirral but expanded and moved its headquarters and manufacturing operations to Enterprise House on the Deeside Industrial Park in January this year.