Erigal - tenant case study
Erigal Limited produce radiopharmaceuticals or tracers for use in Positron Emission Tomography (PET). They have 4 fully licensed radiopharmaceutical production units (RPUs) which supply radiopharmaceuticals to PET imaging centres across the UK and Ireland.
Following the success of their first RPU in Dublin, which has been operating since 2001, Keele in Staffordshire was identified as a strategic, central location in the UK and the Keele RPU was commissioned in September 2005 at Keele University Science and Business Park. It now routinely supplies radiopharmaceuticals to PET imaging centres in Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Preston, Sheffield, Hull, Birmingham, Leeds, Cheltenham and Oxford.
As their business is built around the principles of quality and reliability, Erigal’s RPU facilities are all designed to optimise product quality, production capacity and reliability. Recruitment of specialist staff is critical to the business and Erigal employs highly-trained specialists in physics, radiopharmacy and quality assurance – each of whom plays a key role in providing an efficient and professional service.
Being located next to a University with strengths in Biomedicine, Chemistry, Physics and Pharmacy has provided Erigal with a constant flow of high calibre graduates and PhD level employees for its workforce. The company employed 5 Keele graduates in the areas of production and quality control but all have now either received additional training or have been promoted within the company – one has even moved on to pursue a career in Medicine. Maxine Shaw, a PhD graduate in Chemistry from KeeleUniversity, is now undergoing Qualified Person Status training in order to be licensed to review and release pharmaceutical products for human and veterinary use.
Two other Keele graduates are now undergoing specialist training to become cyclotron engineers and the first Keele graduate to be recruited, Dr. Rob Heathcote, has now been promoted to Operations Manager at the Keele site. Rob has been so impressed with the calibre of graduates from Keele University that he maintains an ongoing dialogue with academic departments there in order to identify talented graduates as they emerge. According to Rob “We have recruited very high calibre students from Keele University with experience in specialist areas relevant to our company. Keele graduates tend to have a higher level of hands-on experience with laboratory equipment and therefore tend to settle quickly in their roles at Erigal.”