Pharmapac, the Birkenhead packaging specialist to the pharmaceutical industry, has received the final instalment of a £215,000 Selective Finance for Investment grant from the Northwest Regional Development Agency. The company first received a grant from the scheme in October 2008 and has since gone on to win two large contracts totalling £2.4m, which enabled it to create 50 jobs. Ian Robinson, the managing director of Pharmapac, said: “The award of the grant was critical in winning the new contracts.”

Liverpool City Council leader Joe Anderson’s bid to set up an embassy in London, in an effort to attract further investment to the city, has been backed the co-founding partner of law firm DWF. Speaking at a Liverpool Business Week event yesterday, organised by Downtown Liverpool in Business, Guy Wallis said that Liverpool needs to capitalise on the cost benefits of being a provincial city, but it has to act now. “Opening an embassy in London needs to happen now, not in November at the end of the Shanghai Expo, we need to be the first city to do it, as people always remember the first,” he said.

The University of Liverpool is to launch a new centre designed to tackle the low life expectancy and high cancer rates of residents in the city region. Funded by Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT), the Liverpool Health Inequalities Research Institute will focus on research into inequalities in health status and the provision and quality of care in areas such as obesity, alcohol abuse and mental health. The institute was borne out of the Health is Wealth initiative launched in 2007.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency and European Regional Development Fund have approved £8.1m of funding to support businesses working in the region’s food and drink industry. The funding will be managed by Food Northwest, the region’s food and drink cluster organisation, which will deliver a support programme focusing on four key themes. The programme will seek to provide specialist technical support, increase market intelligence, offer business continuity planning, and enable companies to take advantage of the organic and ethnic high-growth sectors.

Personal care products group McBride, which has a strong presence in the North West with sites in Middleton, St Helens, Barrow and Burnley, expects its full-year revenue to be flat, the company announced today. Fourth quarter sales are 3 per cent lower than anticipated following weak retail sales across Europe and promotional activity in the UK. The group also announced that it has started a further restructuring project in the UK, which is expected to deliver annualised cost savings of £4m with cash expenditure of £4m.

Neil Price has been appointed as head of the North West team at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets acquisition finance, which provides leveraged finance to support private equity-backed transactions. He moves from the acquisition finance team in London to take the role. Price has a decade of experience at Lloyds Banking Group and will focus on working with private equity houses and intermediaries across the region.

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The Government Office for the North West has confirmed that it will not call in the plans for the redevelopment of the Old Trafford cricket ground area for an inquiry. The Old Trafford Partnership is made up of Lancashire County Cricket Club, Trafford Council, Ask Developments and Tesco. Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes said: “This is a historic decision for the future of international cricket in the North West.” For Insider’s Neil Tague’s view on phase one of the scheme, click here.