Our Purpose

Through our contribution to various COVID-19 vaccination programmes we have been able to play our part in helping the world emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. Our contribution required the rapid ramp-up of lipid production capacity at our Avanti manufacturing site in Alabama, and a project to expand production volumes that would typically take two years was completed in a matter of months. While it was Avanti’s deep knowledge of lipid drug delivery combined with Croda’s expertise in operational scale-up that made the project possible, it was our people who made it happen. Our teams worked around the clock running three shifts a day to produce the required quantities of lipids. 

The project involved diverting resources from around the business to support lipid production, including employees from Croda sites in the US and UK who put their lives on hold and travelled to Alabama for five months. Many of these seconded employees were graduates, with a rotation added to our graduate programmes. Our people worked tirelessly, exemplifying the Croda values, to deliver for our customers.

The immediate impact of this work is obvious, but beyond this the experience and knowledge gained will aid their development as they progress in their careers. Ashlea Taylor-Hughes, pictured, a Croda research scientist from Cheshire, UK, who postponed her wedding to travel to Alabama, said: “It was scary to come out here for five months but, just thinking of all the good that it would do, I was completely up for it.”