The Quality Control Laboratory, in both the R & D and Operations environment, is a key element of the supply chain and has a particularly significant impact on lead times, affecting speed of drug development and overall site manufacturing performance.

As the UK pharmaceutical industry faces ever-increasing competition from abroad, the enhancement of laboratory productivity to improve the product-process development cycle and manufacturing efficiency has become even more crucial for the long-term viability of UK-based sites.

This symposium will review advances in laboratory efficiency which, both individually and collectively, are designed to achieve these outcomes, through the adoption of process-based improvement tools, automation and integrated data handling within the laboratory.