Member Article

Building business through educational expertise: Dianne Sharp of SCM Pharma speaks to bdaily

“We’re a small company from Prudhoe, but our specialised niche services are recognised on a global stage – and for us, that’s really amazing,” says Dianne Sharp, managing director of SCM Pharma.

SCM Pharma is a pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organisation, specialising in novel, difficult and dangerous products, as well as individually licensed drugs.

Despite being an accountant by trade, Dianne Sharp has spent the past 20 years has worked in a variety of manufacturing businesses in the engineering and pharmaceutical sector, and has a complex understanding of how to implement strategy in this type of firm.

She joined the company 18 months ago, and since then, the company has gone from strength to strength.

“Since I’ve been with the company, staff numbers have increased from 48 to 82, and turnover has increased by 65%.

“We’re now on track to hit a turnover of £4 million in 2011, which is incredibly exciting, but even when you grow this fast, you still get growing pains. Staff numbers have increased rapidly, so we’ve had to work hard maintaining the culture within the company – especially as we’ve been so busy.”

While Dianne obviously has a real talent for marrying together business and manufacturing, she refuses to take any credit for her work.

“We’ve got a fantastic team here, ranging from pharmacists and chemical engineers, to people without any scientific background.

“Having a full range of staff brings variety to the business, and often means we are not blinded by knowledge.

“Equally the stuff they’re doing is just tremendous – they can make a real different to the end clients quality of life, and I only play a small part in that.”

SCM Pharma works closely with the local universities, and currently has access to the Formulation Laboratories at Sunderland University

“We’re incredibly lucky in this region to have such a high density of fantastic universities in the region who are all doing some incredibly interesting and relevant work.

“I’d recommend that more companies in the region should build relationships with local universities, because they have the leverage to help business – you’ll be astonished by what you’ll find.”

Through these links and new research, Dianne now hopes to extend SCM Pharma’s reach into new geographical markets.

“We’re building a specialised niche service, for which there’s a real gap in the market – so now is a very exciting time for us.”

Find out more about SCM Pharma here; http://www.scmpharma.com/

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .