Readers of the Medicine Maker have voted Professor Julian Morris one of the most influential people in the world in drug development and manufacture.

He is one of only 13 UK entries in the Medicine Maker Power List 2015, their index of the 100 most influential people in this sphere.

“I always knew I wanted to work on research and development which made a difference to people’s lives," said Julian.  "I was particularly interested in the impact the technologies we researched might have on the faster development and the cheaper manufacture of medicines and drugs. The impact on people’s lives could be dramatic in terms of their accessibility to more people across the world.”

Following his first degree and PhD at Newcastle he worked for three years with Merz and McLellan, the Newcastle international consulting Engineers before joining the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at Newcastle. Julian’s research team advanced the control of chemicals and pharmaceutical processes which established a major UK and international presence. During that time Julian became Head of the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering (1990 to 1995) and then the first Head of the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, established in 2002. He also spent some three years as Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Julian is presently Emeritus Professor at Newcastle University in the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials. He is also Technical Director of the Centre for Process Analytics and Control Technology (CPACT). This is a unique industry - academic collaborative Centre which together with colleagues at Newcastle, Strathclyde and Hull he established under the UK ‘Foresight’ initiative in 2006. He was a member of the original team which established the UK Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) and has been on its Technical Advisory Committee since its inception.

Julian has published over 200 articles and been invited to speak at numerous meetings and conferences in many different countries and at many different companies across the chemicals, materials and pharmaceutical sectors.  His contributions to process engineering and manufacturing were recognised in 2003 when he became a Fellow of Britain's Royal Academy of Engineering.

In commenting on his inclusion in the Power List Julian said “I have always been inspired by the research students and staff with whom I have worked and I hope I have been able to inspire them.  This recognition is an acknowledgement of the highly motivated research staff and students with whom I have had the pleasure and privilege to work. I am delighted they are now making their own significant contributions to engineering, science and higher education across the world.

“Science and Engineering are the future and have major contributions to make economically, socially and to our quality of life. There are many remarkable engineers in universities who are inventing amazing things. I hope more young people will get involved so that their contributions might benefit more people’s lives in the way that I hope I have been able to,” he concluded.

Prof Morris is also visiting Professor in the Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde.

published on: 22 May 2015