Since The Specials Lab was founded in 1999, the North East of England has provided an ideal base from which to grow and strengthen our business. Today we operate from three separate sites on the same estate in Northumberland, with our location allowing us the flexibility to plan further expansion.
Our facility benefits from a skilled, hardworking and reliable local workforce, as well as great transport links. As our business is set up to deliver unlicensed medicines to patients within just 24 hours of an order being placed, the accessibility of our site is critical.
Sharon Griffiths
Managing Director, The Specials Laboratory
The Specials Lab
The Specials Lab is based in Northumberland. The award-winning company reliably makes and delivers unlicensed medicines (Specials) to thousands of community and hospital pharmacists and doctors throughout the UK and Ireland – usually within 24 hours of an order being placed. They also supply ‘special obtain’ items to help pharmacists when they require a product that is not a regular line and therefore not stocked by a mainline wholesaler. The company started back in 1999 with just three people and now has around 125 employees based across three MHRA-licensed sites.
In addition, they offer a service to manufacture Investigational Medicinal Products (IMPs), so they can meet the supply needs of hospital-based clinical trials. Their three sites are licensed to offer a IMP manufacturing service for non-sterile medicines for use in small clinical studies. This GMP-compliant manufacturing service supports clinical trial pharmacists and technicians, University medical schools and research doctors carrying out such trials and requiring an outsourced manufacturing partner.