A WEST MALLING company has won a further £7 million to inject into a pioneering pill coating that could smash the global trade in fake drugs.

Phoqus Pharmaceuticals, based in Kings Hill, has developed and patented a unique tablet manufacturing process that is stirring huge interest in the pharmaceutical industry.

While it offers benefits to patients, it also allows manufacturers to produce tablets with more distinctive branding and markings. These should prove an effective weapon against drug counterfeiting.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 10 per cent of all drugs sold are fake. Officials say this illicit trade is worth around £15 billion a year and puts patients at considerable risk.

The process has so impressed investors that the likes of Advent, 3i and Abingworth are injecting a further £7m on top of the £13m already pumped into Phoqus in 2001.

The "photocopier" process adapts the principles behind conventional office photocopiers to give three-dimensional (3D) coating and loading of active drug compounds onto the surface of tablets.

According to Phoqus, the process delivers greater drug dosing range and accuracy and enables easy changes to drug release properties.

Chief executive Dr Frank Armstrong said: "These funds will allow Phoqus to drive forward the development of the company, and will add to the revenues we are building from pharmaceutical development studies conducted for leading pharmaceutical companies.

"Raising these funds in the current business climate is a sign of tremendous confidence in Phoqus from a group of respected investors."

Meanwhile, the company is also looking at potential opportunities for applying the 3D photocopying method in healthcare and other industries.