Winners of this year's Queen's Awards for Enterprise include Eli Lilly & Co Ltd, which gains an award for achievement in innovation, and Pfizer Ltd, which wins an award for international trade (formerly known as an export award).
Lilly's award is for the development of its schizophrenia drug olanzapine (Zyprexa), which was first marketed in 1996 and last year had world-wide sales totalling £1.18bn. The award is the company's third Queen's award and its first for innovation.
The citation for Pfizer's award specifically mentions Viagra, which forms a significant part of the company's international trade. Pfizer says that in the year ended August 31, 1999, it had overseas earnings of more than £700m. This was an increase of 33 per cent on 1997, when Pfizer won the second of its two previous export awards. Pfizer has also won innovation awards for fluconazole (1991) and oxamniquine (1979).
Among other winners this year is Micromass UK Ltd, supplier of mass spectrometers for analysing drugs and other substances, which has won both an innovation award and an international trade award. International trade awards also go to Image Processing & Vision Co Ltd, which produces software-based imaging systems for research into cell structure and function, and Tripos Receptor Research Ltd, which produces libraries of chemical compounds to support drug discovery.