MANAGERS at a County Durham pharmaceutical water specialist have spoken of their pride at winning a Queen's Award for innovation.

Honeyman Group Ltd, based in Barnard Castle, took the honour for HydroGienic, its high purity water storage and distribution system.

The award for outstanding achievement recognises the contribution to industry the business has made among UK entrepreneurs and companies.

Managing director Tom Honeyman said: “We are deeply honoured to have been recognised by the Queen’s Award.

"There is constant commercial pressure on manufacturing facility managers to maximise efficiencies and output performance, while minimising costs and overheads. HydroGienic enables revenue savings, as well as added-value improvement to production efficiency, performance and reliability.”

HydroGienic is a bulk pure water distribution system developed by Honeyman to prevent problems associated with existing systems in the pharmaceutical industry.

Typical water distribution systems work on a stainless steel ring main style layout, and if one part of the factory requires changes made to its water supply, the whole system has to be closed down, causing disruption in production.

The HydroGienic system utilises a central storage tank, with each area of the factory supplied through its own send and return PTFE hoses. User points can be added or moved without disrupting production.

Mr Honeyman said: “The HydroGienic system is tried, tested and trusted, it is a pure water distribution system for forward-thinking pharmaceutical manufacturers.”

Quotient, a commercial-stage transfusion diagnostics company, uses the system at its state-of-the-art Allan-Robb Campus, just outside Edinburgh.

Gordon Robb, vice president of operations at Quotient, said: “The new HydroGienic system flexibility fits with our growth plans. When we need to expand the system, we can increase the number of distribution points with minimal impact on the business.

"We can now easily add to or isolate parts of the system. By comparison, a traditional system would need to be taken down on a regular basis and would have associated costs for sourcing water.”