Core skills are lacking in the lab and in medical manufacturing, says Ivan Wall, but VR can play an essential role in solving the challenge.

The life sciences sector is vital for the UK’s economy, but there are serious skills gaps in key areas, particularly medicines manufacturing and around core lab skills. New drug types (for example gene therapies and biologics) demand complex manufacturing processes, and one report suggests the sector will need 70,000 new and 75,000 replacement jobs in the next 10 years.

Moreover, the UK faces a wider lack of core laboratory skills, driven by underfunding and reduced technical training. Universities and industry report shortages in practical competencies, affecting research capabilities, diagnostics and innovation, while experienced technicians retire faster than new, well-trained staff enter the workforce.

Addressing the problem will mean starting now to attract young people to work in the sector, so how might that be realised? Could virtual reality (VR) technology help attract those young people by creating an engaging training environment that inspires as well as educates?

Drug dependency

Many new drugs under development contain high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients. As a result, they present serious handling challenges and expensive specialised equipment is needed to protect employees and their environment from exposure. These can be limiting factors for many labs.

In addition, ‘biologics’ (which includes vaccines, blood components, somatic cells and tissues) may offer the most effective means to treat a variety of currently untreatable conditions. But they tend to be heat sensitive and susceptible to contamination, so the initial manufacturing steps are especially sensitive.

On top of that, advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), based on genes, cells or tissues, promise groundbreaking opportunities for the treatment of diseases. But here too, there are significant challenges.

Finally, we are seeing some advanced, personalised therapies. But they are produced in multiple small batches, which means production is costly, difficult to reproduce at scale, and requires highly-skilled operators.

The UK is already at the forefront of the science behind these medicines, but this needs to be matched in manufacturing capabilities.

The recently published Life sciences competitiveness indicators 2024 [1] noted that pharmaceutical manufacturing’s gross value added (GVA) was £13.7 billion in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Medicines Manufacturing Industry Partnership (MMIP, which represents medicines manufacturers in the UK), noted in 2023 that medicines manufacturing generates the majority of life sciences jobs [2].

The challenges are significant, ranging from encouraging young people to take STEM subjects at school through to developing training programmes that teach the necessary skills for working in the sector.

This latter issue is made more challenging by the very nature of the work; gaining access to laboratories or advanced manufacturing facilities for training is inevitably disruptive and expensive – people must travel there, materials are consumed, training staff must be on-hand, working days are interrupted.

Is there a way to square the circle?

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies hold out the promise of overcoming all these limitations, and have the added benefit that they are, simply put, interesting and attractive to young people.

In this article we will explore how VR is being used to excite, engage and enable young people to work in advanced medicines manufacturing, and we will hear from some of those young people who have experienced the technology as part of a major government programme designed specifically to address the sector’s skills gap.

Virtual money

In simple terms, VR is a computer-gener ated environment with scenes and objects that appear to be real, making the user feel immersed in that environment. The key technology is the VR headset, which covers the eyes and ears and effectively blanks out the real world. Critically, the computer-generated environment can be an exact replica of a real-world laboratory environment.

AR is different in that the environment remains the real world, but with computergenerated objects and images added.

Mixed reality is a combination of VR and AR that makes it possible to see virtual objects in the real world and interact with them.

The VR/AR market is predicted to grow dramatically over the next few years, from $15 billion in 2024 to $38 billion by 2029, according to market specialists Markets and Markets [3]. This is a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of almost 20%. Some analysts are even more bullish, and it’s easy to see why.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies hold out the promise of overcoming all these limitations, and have the added benefit that they are, simply put, interesting and attractive to young people

A key driver of that growth is the ability to simulate real-world environments in which it would otherwise be impractical, disruptive or expensive to experience.

Medicines manufacturing is a prime example of such an environment.

What did VR ever do for us?

The environments in which advanced medicines must be manufactured mean it should not be a surprise that VR/AR is a key enabling technology for training.

With VR it is possible to learn a wide range of vital practices, without being in a real lab. Gowning and cleaning are two examples of simple, yet vitally important activities.

Much of the core training is about orientation, building confidence, familiarity and process knowledge, so VR is a highly efficient and cost-effective delivery method.

Training time is on-demand, unlimited and can be repeated at will. Perhaps obviously, there’s no need to travel to an actual manufacturing site – and of course no expensive consumables need to be used.

Critically, training can be standardised across geographies and sites, and there’s no limit on class sizes.

From cleanrooms to complex manufacturing tools, a VR-based tour of a real-world lab allows anyone to explore every corner with unprecedented detail and precision.

The VR environment used in the Resilience training programme is based on one of the most advanced facilities in the country, the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult’s manufacturing centre in Stevenage.

VR/AR technology will continue to evolve, to become a key enabler for training in industry and manufacturing. By transforming the ways in which we think about developing core lab skills, the UK can better retain its position as a global leader in life science.

The leading payers are developing wireless HD headsets, using ever more powerful processors. They will undoubtedly soon integrate AI, and 5G will allow more devices and larger communities to be connected.

For advanced medicines manufacturing, this means even better training and an even more exciting and engaging career path for young people.

In short, VR/AR technology will help to create a generation of lab workers equipped with the necessary skills for working in advanced medicines manufacturing and many other vital areas.

References:

1 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-sciencessector-data-2024/life-sciencescompetitivenessindicators-2024-summary#section-6-access-to-skilled-labour

2 https://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/follow-the-green-hightech-road/

3 https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/reality-applicationsmarket-458.html#:~:text=Overview,19.1%25%20during%20the%20forecast%20period

• Ivan Wall is professor of regenerative medicine at the University of Birmingham and codirector of Resilience – the UK’s Medicines Manufacturing Skills Centre of Excellence