Vectura, the Chippenham-based drug development firm, has extended further extended its global network of blue-chip collaborators by signing a licence agreement with a major US biotech company. Vectura will exclusively develop anti-inflammatory therapies for the treatment of asthma/ chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for Janssen Biotech under the agreement. Vectura said the collaboration would...
Thrings has become the first law firm in Swindon to include an interactive, 3D virtual tour of its office in the town on Google – a move it believes gives it a commercial advantage over its rivals. Anyone searching for Thrings on Google will see high quality, 360-degree photographs of the firm’s main client-facing...
Bristol Airport has been named as the world’s most punctual in research based on 43.5m flights from 4,000 destinations across the globe. It has also just had its busiest-ever year with 6.3m passengers passing through the terminal. Bristol’s on-time performance rating of 94.6% placed it top of a prestigious international league table for small...
Bristol Airport has acquired an electric van for use by its IT team as the first of a number of initiatives supporting the city’s year as European Green Capital. The Nissan e-NV200 is the first 100% electric-powered vehicle on the 176-hectare site. It has been bought with support from TravelWest, the organisation that promotes...
STEAM museum sales and interpretation assistant Kevin Shurmer is in the running for the title of England’s ‘tourism superstar’ for going beyond the call of duty in his job at the Swindon attraction. Self-confessed railway fanatic Kevin, 68, comes from a family steeped in Swindon’s industrial history, with five generations employed in the giant...
Monday 5 January Trading statement: Nichols EGM: Hangar 8 Economics: Markit/CIPS UK construction, Halifax house prices Tuesday 6 January Economics: Markit/CIPS composite PMI, services PMI, Official reserves Wednesday 7 January Trading statements: easyJet, Galliford Try, Persimmon, Robert Walters, J Sainsbury Economics: BRC shop price index, New car registrations Thursday 8 January Trading statements: Dunelm...
More than 50 workers at the Swindon site of collapsed parcel delivery firm City Link have been made redundant, it was announced this afternoon – leaving 19 staff to clear a backlog and wind down the depot. The 54 workers losing their jobs at the site on Royal Wootton Bassett’s Interface Business Park are...
North Wiltshire businessman and social housing champion David Ashmore and master arrowsmith Hector Cole have been appointed MBEs in the New Year Honours list. Mr Ashmore, pictured, a board member of the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and until January 2013 chief executive of housing group Greensquare, was recognised for “services to housing...
More than 70 workers based at collapsed parcel delivery firm City Link’s Swindon depot face an anxious few days as they wait to find out if they are to lose their jobs. The depot, pictured, on Wootton Bassett’s Interface Business Park, is the firm’s largest in the South West and employs 73 staff. They...
Ian Larrard, director of the Swindon & Wiltshire Initiative at Business West, looks back at the past 12 months and considers why next year’s General Election is set to be one of the most important in recent memory. “The noise and glare of fireworks this New Year must not mask the fact that we...
