A SPEKE-BASED pharmaceutical company is today celebrating 40 years of production on Merseyside.
Speke Operations, which employs 460 people, was purchased by Eli Lilly in 1963 from Distillers Biochemicals.
During the last 40 years the plant has played an important role in the bulk manufacture of a number of pharmaceuticals, including several major antibiotics.
In the early 1980s Speke Operations was instrumental in the manufacture and development of Lilly's biosynthetic human insulin.
The plant continues to develop its expertise in bio-technology and also plays an important role in the production of a vital antibiotic used in the treatment of drug resistant tuberculosis, which is once more on the increase around the world.
There has been a pharmaceutical plant on the site since the war when it was built by the Ministry of Supply.
