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A Redcar firm which exports to 30 countries through London’s Heathrow Airport has been named among 10 “Global Britain Business Champions”.

Micropore Technologies, a solutions provider for specialist particles and emulsion manufacturing, has been announced as the North-East winner of the airport’s competition, which recognises and celebrates SMEs that export via Heathrow – the UK’s largest port.

Micropore exports to around 30 countries via Heathrow, taking advantage of the time savings offered by air freight. Located near Teesside airport, the company makes use of Heathrow’s direct regional connectivity, forging links between Teesside and the rest of the world.

The 10 winners, from across the UK, all export either their goods or services via Heathrow, and demonstrate the best of British quality, innovation, technology, or design.

Micropore Technologies is also a previous winner of Heathrow’s World of Opportunity grant. This was a joint initiative between Heathrow and the Department for International Trade, which provided grants to SMEs looking to fund trade missions to global markets of their choice.

Micropore will now receive free promotion across the airport as part of a campaign to showcase some of the British businesses that use Heathrow to reach international markets.

International visitors who came to the North-East via Heathrow spent more than £350m in the local economy in 2019, a number that was growing until the pandemic.

That spending is seen as critical to the 95,000 “plus” people working in North-East hospitality at the beginning of 2020 – nearly 8 per cent of the total workforce.

Heathrow enables much of this tourism and business travel, with over 60 flights to Newcastle every week in 2019, and eight new flights per week to Teesside Airport in 2020.

Heathrow chief commercial officer, Ross Baker, said:

“Companies in every corner of the UK rely on Heathrow’s diverse route network to export their goods and services abroad. Their continued success is crucial to Britain’s post-pandemic economic recovery, as well as the Government’s own plans for levelling up every corner of the UK and creating a Global Britain.

“We are proud to support these businesses and hope to facilitate even more opportunities, but Government needs to safely streamline the framework for international travel. Doing this will help to safely restore many of the invaluable trade links that have been severed as a result of this pandemic.”

Dai Hayward, Micropore Technologies’ CEO, said:

“As a global business that has spent many hundreds of hours travelling across the world from Heathrow Airport over recent years, this award recognises the pioneering role that Micropore Technologies is playing on the global stage.

“Micropore’s unique particle engineering expertise is deployed in the production of the lipid nanoparticles, such as those found in the Covid-19 vaccine, and stands to revolutionise the manufacture of a wide range of future pharmaceutical products.

“From Japan to California and 30 countries in between, Micropore has found that there is demand right across the world for the biopharmaceutical standard, high-throughput technology it has developed.

“This technology offers the capability of producing mRNA vaccines and long acting, controlled release drugs under precise control.

“We are proud of the recognition of the role that a Teesside business like Micropore is playing on behalf of British industry, on the world stage.

“We are pioneers in our field and the internationally connected airports like Teesside, Newcastle and Heathrow have been critical to our expansion and our ability to be able to service our customers worldwide.”

Credit: Tees Business

Find out more about Micropore Technologies, here.