All language subtitles for Inside.the.Factory.S10E04.Throat.Lozenges.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Hello.
Today I'm at a factory...

Sorry, sore throat.

HE CLEARS THROAT

Oh! That's better.

..that can produce up to
36 million throat lozenges

every single day.

Oh, look at this!

I'm Paddy McGuinness...

Oh! That's good.

..a reluctant superhero...

Is this not the worst Avenger
you've ever seen in your life?

..in the fight against the symptoms
of colds and flu...

I absolutely love that.

It's like a machine gun of
throat lozenges!

Hard at work...

For God's sake, Brian, slow it down!

I'm not a machine!

..to provide the relief that a
snotty-nosed nation needs.

And while I learn how to
soothe a sore throat

and a banging headache,

Cherry Healey is rounding up
the ingredients...

I'm in search of honey,

uncovering the
stomach-churning habits

of nature's hardworking heroes.

When a honeybee
gets back to the hive,

it regurgitates its
collected nectar.

Obviously, it regurgitates it.

..and our resident historian
Ruth Goodman

is prescribing the shocking history
of the local pharmacy.

You could buy arsenic,
strychnine, cyanide.

Over the counter with no oversight?

And no prescription.

Wow.

SHE LAUGHS

This factory pops out
an incredible 230 million

tablets and lozenges
every single week.

Welcome to Inside The Factory.

Play the titles.

- You all right?
- You OK?
You all right?

Chaps.

Love these doors.

Get on that.

Lovely stuff.

I'm at the Reckitt factory
in Nottingham,

where they make enough
pills and tablets here

to fill the biggest of
medicine cabinets.

Whether you've got
a nasty cold coming on

or just a bit of indigestion...

..there's a good chance
that if there's

an over-the-counter medicine
to soothe it,

they make it here.

And today, I'm following
the production of not one,

but two medicines -

Strepsils honey and lemon lozenges

and Nurofen ibuprofen.

Now, clearly I have no idea
about making pharmaceuticals,

but I do know that this factory
takes it very seriously indeed...

..because even me
designer stubble's...

And this.

..got to be covered up.

Well, the main thing is,

I've still got me dignity.

Let's make some pills.

And you can't have
a honey and lemon lozenger -

yep, that's how we say it up North -

without some honey.

They get through
175,000 litres every year,

making lozengers to ease
our scratchy throats...

..and I'm on my way to meet it.

Right.

Whoa! One more thing
you need there, Paddy.

More?

What are they doing here,
splitting the atom?

I tell you what, is this not

the worst Avenger you've
ever seen in your life?

Meanwhile, the hero ingredient
for my lozengers -

the honey - has been taken to
the factory's high-tech

dust-free testing station.

Keep going, mate.

In this chamber of
highly filtered air,

only authorised personnel
are allowed in

to meet lozenger supply lead
Richard Tagg.

- Ay up, Rich.
- Hi, Paddy.
- How do we do this?

Is it all...? I mean, it's all, er...

How are you, pal?
Oh, he's on the elbows.

Safety first!

This is the next level.

This is the most I've ever had to do

when it comes to PPE
and everything else.

Why is it so stringent?

So because we're a
pharmaceutical factory,

from a safety and
quality perspective,

we have to make sure that we cannot
contaminate any of our products.

All our raw materials that
come into the factory

have to be sampled and tested.

- So Tim's going to take that
away for testing.
- OK.

How many cough drops
in there then, Rich?

These aren't cough drops.

These are medicated lozenges
that we're making today.

A medicated lozenge coats the throat

to relieve the symptoms and
discomforts of a sore throat.

It's classed as a medicine,

and you're only allowed up to
12 lozenges per 24 hours.

We use honey for flavour,

and we add our medicines
and active ingredients

later within the process.

These are the things
you do not even think about

when you pick up a lozenger.

Tim's put the honey through its paces

to meet the factory's strict
quality controls.

Yeah, that's good to go.

Get her out, pal.

So it's safely sealed up again
for transit out of the airlock...

..and we can start the
clock on production.

While the honey heads off to be
transformed into lozengers,

it's got me thinking -

how do bees actually make the stuff?

Cherry's on the case.

I am, Paddy,
and I am buzzing to visit

a specialist research facility

run by the University of Oxford.

Scientist Dr Jonathan Pattrick
is a serious bee boffin.

- Lovely to meet you.
- Good to meet you.

- Welcome to the bee lab.
- The bee lab.
- Mm-hm.

- What are you actually studying?
- So we're interested in

bee nutrition, bee behaviour,
bee physiology,

making sure the bees are healthy

and healthy bees will tend
to produce more honey.

Why do bees make honey?

- Well, they're not
making it for us.
- What?!

- They don't make it for us?
- No.

They're actually making it
as a store

to see them through the winter.

Bees make honey to feed the colony

and to make enough
for the cold weather,

they must collect plenty of
the main ingredient - nectar -

from flowers during
spring and summer.

What exactly is nectar?

So nectar is produced by plants

to encourage bees
and other pollinators

to visit their flowers.

It's a sugary liquid which is
essentially carbohydrates,

so it powers the bee's flight.

And it's also something that
the bees will be taking back

to their colony to feed
the colony members as well.

So it's not just that bees
collect nectar

to take back to make honey
at the hive,

- they actually eat it as a snack?
- Exactly.

Bees collect nectar
using a proboscis,

which is like a long tongue,
especially evolved

to lap up the sweet liquid from
the centre of the flower.

Well, how does it then
transport it to the hive,

if it's already eaten it?

So a honeybee has a
special storage organ

inside its abdomen called
the honey stomach.

The honey stomach is
an expandable pouch

which can hold around
30mg of nectar.

But how does it get
turned into honey?

So when a honeybee gets back to
the hive, the first thing it does

is off-load its collected nectar
to a receiver bee.

How does it hand it over?

Yeah, so I'm not sure
you're going to like this.

- So it regurgitates its
collected nectar.
- Of course.

Obviously, it regurgitates it!

To demonstrate how this
happens inside the hive,

Jonathan has mixed sugar with water

to create his own artificial nectar.

Doesn't take long before
the bees suck it up...

They absolutely love that.

..and share it out.

- There we go.
- There we go! There we go!

So you can see one of the bees
has got its proboscis out

and is drinking the nectar
from the other one.

As the liquid nectar is passed
from one bee to another,

some of the water evaporates,

increasing the concentration
of sugar,

but not yet raising the levels
enough to transform it into honey.

Nectar is typically
around 20% sugar,

whereas honey,
we need to get up to something

that's around 80% sugar.

How on Earth do the bees
get rid of so much water?

The best place to see that
is actually in the hive.

There are 12 hives
in this outside lab.

And apiary manager...

- Is that Mark?
- Yes. Hello!
- It is Mark!

..Mark Lynch...

Could be anyone!

..is using a little wood smoke
to calm the bees down.

We are going inside the hive.

We're going inside the factory.

OK, look at this. Wow!

Each hive has between 50,000
and 80,000 working bees.

That's incredible.

At this point, the nectar
hasn't become honey yet.

They still need to evaporate
more water from the liquid.

So there's still lots of work
to be done by the bees

- to get it thicker and sweeter.
- Yes.

Each bee regurgitates nectar

from their honey stomach
into their mouthparts,

where even more water evaporates.

They repeat this process to fully
concentrate the nectar,

and they have one last trick
to finish the job.

- The bees will continue to reduce
the water content...
- How?

..in the liquid by fanning
their wings...

- Oh, wow.
- ..to create an
air flow through the hive

that will evaporate the water.

The temperature of a hive
is about 35 degrees,

so the heat of the hive
and the fanning

will reduce the water content
even further.

So the fanning is almost like
putting on a hairdryer?

- Yeah.
- That's brilliant.

After this final blow-dry,

the water content is reduced
to less than 18%,

leaving at least 82% sugar,

which means that it's now
officially honey.

- Oh, look at that.
- Look at that!
We've got 82.4%.

Perfect. Well done, girls!

But the bees' work isn't done yet.

In the wild, bees create these
familiar hexagonal honeycomb shapes

by secreting wax from glands
on their abdomen.

In a hive, the man-made
wooden frames

have a thin foundation layer of wax,

providing a neat template

onto which the bees build
their cells to store the honey.

When the bees have finished
processing the honey

and it's become what we call ripe,

the bees will cover the cell over
with wax to waterproof it,

because honey will suck
moisture out of the air,

and without the wax coating,

it would become more watery again
and eventually ferment.

As well as making enough honey

to see themselves
through the winter,

the bees in a hive like this
can produce

an additional 22 jars'
worth of honey a year...

..enough for 87,307 individual
throat lozenges.

So that's been regurgitated
many, many times.

It's been dried.
It's been heated by the hive

and then it's been sealed
to be waterproof.

Yes.

- It takes a lot of work to make
honey, doesn't it?
- It certainly
does.

Back at the most hygienically
high-tech factory I've ever seen...

..I'm settling into my
surgical space loafers

and following the health and safety
yellow brick road.

That's fancy.

- I like that.
- Yeah, the lighting.

When it comes to PPE,
what's your favourite part?

- Not the hairnets.
- I quite like these glasses.

My fully tested honey has made
its way to the mixing area...

..but not as we know it, Jim.

Ah!

Waiting for the airlock.

So everything's...

Is it hermat...? What's the word?

We call them airlocks. So you've got
pressure differentials, basically...

- Oh, right. OK.
- ..to keep the contamination away.

Rich didn't want to say
"hermetically sealed" either.

Here they are.

So the honey's piped up.

That's pumped into the mixer.

So is it just honey
in there, then, Rich?

No. We mix the honey with
liquid sucrose and liquid glucose.

Sucrose is a complex sugar
that comes from fruit.

Glucose is a simple sugar
made up from cornstarch.

If we just used liquid sucrose
alone, it would crystallise

- and produce a gritty lozenge...
- Yeah.

..whereas if we just used
glucose alone,

it would melt the final lozenge.

So we use both to build
the perfect structure

to carry the medicine to our throat.

These sugars are combined
with the honey

to create the base mixture
for my lozenger.

The sweet mix then travels through
a series of cookers,

heating it to 140 degrees Celsius,

removing 20% of its moisture.

If it continued to cook
at those temperatures,

the materials would burn.

So to get around that, we drop the
materials into a vacuum chamber.

Normally, water is boiled at
100 degrees Celsius,

but this vacuum allows us
to boil a lot lower,

around 30 degrees.

The vacuum chamber
lowers air pressure,

so a lot less heat is needed

to expand the water molecules
into gas,

which brings the moisture level
down to 2%.

Next, tartaric acid from fruits
like grapes and avocados is added

to enhance the flavour
of the lozenger.

We've still got to add the medicine.

Where's that done?

So the medicine is made
in dispensary.

That sounds very chemist-y,
very pharmaceutical.

- That's right.
- I like it.

Richard, it's been a pleasure, fella.

- I'll go and look at the next bit.
- Cheers.

While Rich oversees my
scorching hot mixture,

I'm off to meet technical director
Dr Genna Buckley...

..who has a door with no airlock.

So maybe things are getting
a bit more relaxed around here.

- Hello, Genna.
- Hi, Paddy.
- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.
- Are you OK?

Right. Just one minute.

You can't come across the line
if you've got a phone on you.

This is an ATEX rated zone,

which is where we have to be
extra specially careful

when we've got fine dry powders
and flammable liquids.

Anything that carries
an electrical charge

might cause an explosion.

Understood.

Just pop it on there.

Is it just anything...?

Anything electrical, I'm sorry,
You cannot bring over.

No worries. All right.

Should've known this.

Yep, keep going.

We might be here for a while, Genna.

- Right.
- Right. Is that everything?

- Yeah.
- OK.

- Right.
- One last thing - no cameras.

Genna. We need them,

so we can see it on the telly.

You can come over,

- but they need to stay over there.
- Cameras can stay,

- and they can't come with us.
- That's
right.
- Right, Dan the cam,

get over there, pal.

Luckily, the lads have
some paparazzi lenses.

- Right.
- Come on, then.

What a place this is.

THEY LAUGH

So these are the ingredients that
go into our medicated lozenge.

This is what changes it
from being just a sweet

into something that can help
take away your sore throat.

So what causes a sore throat?

So most sore throats are
caused by viruses.

They attack the lining
of your throat.

They make it red, tender and sore.

So in our medicated lozenges,
we have two ingredients.

These are the antiseptics that help
kill viruses in your throat.

- The first one is the
amylmetacresol.
- Yeah.

And then the other is
dichlorobenzyl alcohol.

This helps attack different bugs
in your mouth and your throat,

and when they're combined together,

they act to be stronger
and take the pain away.

First into the mixer
go the antiseptics.

Next, we need some flavouring.

We have lemon oil
and the peppermint oil

that helps it accentuate
this flavour.

Oh, so you add peppermint
to get more lemon?

We do, yes.
The way it works in your mouth,

the peppermint makes
the lemon taste better.

The flavourings are added

and the mixture is heated
to 35 degrees Celsius.

20 minutes later, my medicine is done

and decanted into containers,

ready to be sent to
the production line.

As I'm quickly learning,
and as you can see,

there's a lot of
rules and regulations

when it comes to medicine,
but 200 years ago,

not so much...

..as Ruth has been discovering.

If you were sick
in Victorian Britain,

there was no NHS to turn to,

and doctors were expensive.

But Victorian pharmacies
like this one,

faithfully recreated at the
London Science Museum,

stocked a range of
products and potions

that Kathryn Walker of the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

knows all about.

Hello!

I was wondering, this feels
quite a grand sort of space.

What sort of things are people
coming to a chemist's for?

Well, the chemists and druggists
would sell a whole range of things,

ranging from food, wine,

you could go for the opticians,
get a tooth pulled.

So it wasn't just medicines
that they sold.

It's not like the NHS now,
where pharmacists

are paid to supply you
with prescription medicine.

Even the poorest customers
could afford cheap remedies

for common ailments
like coughs and colds.

There were absolutely
no restrictions

on what these druggists sold

or who they sold it to.

This illustration dates to
the 1860s.

Oh, this is amazing, isn't it?
We've got this very emaciated

little girl down here.

"Please, mister,
will you be so good

"as to fill this bottle again
with laudanum?"

Laudanum is basically opium
and alcohol mixed together.

And...

And you can see from
her sunken-in cheeks

that this is a depiction of somebody
who's already addicted.

So this is saying a child is
an opium addict?

Yes. Children were quite often
given laudanum

as a soothing aid,
to help them sleep.

And side by side with narcotics...

..were some even
more sinister products.

And there's arsenic.

"All sorts of poisons
constantly" available.

Yes, Victorians had
a slightly different

understanding of poisons than we do.

You could buy arsenic,
strychnine, cyanide,

all from your chemists
and druggists.

Over the counter with no oversight?

And no prescription.

Wow.

RUTH LAUGHS

Across town at the archives of
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society,

a few rare relics from this
unregulated Victorian era

can be handled with great care.

Oh, gosh!

Arsenic complexion soap?

You'd be surprised at the products
that arsenic found its way into.

I mean, in cosmetics!

It's a far cry from the heavily
controlled ingredients

used on Paddy's
production line today.

Oh, we've got some throat pastilles.

Now, you'd think that would be
all right, wouldn't you?

Allenburys Throat Pastilles.

Diamorphine and cocaine!

Diamorphine actually is
a cough suppressant.

- OK.
- And then the cocaine is
an anaesthetic,

so it would soothe your sore throat.

But these drugs could also be
dangerously addictive.

Thankfully, from the middle of
the 19th century,

Acts of Parliament were passed

to try to bring the chemists
under control...

..but it was a tragic case
in Bradford

that would change the
pharmaceutical industry forever.

There was a confectioner

who was making peppermint
humbugs like this,

and he was padding out the sugar,

because it was so expensive,

- with a plaster of Paris mixture.
- Mm-hm.

And so he went to his chemist
and druggist to get some,

but he was accidentally
given arsenic.

Good grief.

And he mixed those into the sweets.

The finished sweets
didn't look quite right,

so were sold at a discount
to market trader Humbug Billy.

The sweets sold out fast,

but proved to be deadly.

So we've got here -
"Dreadful fatality from poisoning."

Gosh! "And I sent two bellmen

"into all parts of the borough
to give warning

"to all persons not to eat
these lozenges."

So you can imagine the panic.

People were literally running
through the streets, warning people.

Ringing bells, shouting,
"They're poisonous!"

And there was a massive amount.

There was 12lbs of arsenic...

- Oh, my gosh.
- ..mixed into 40lbs of sweets.

Tragically, more than 200 people
were poisoned,

and at least 20 died.

This fateful event led to
the Pharmacy Act of 1868,

which limited sales of poisons

to qualified pharmacists
and druggists.

So now, instead of anybody being
able to set up a chemist shop

and sell whatever they like...

It has to be highly regulated.

So in order to practise pharmacy,

you had to be a member of
the Pharmaceutical Society.

The Pharmacy Act also required
chemists and druggists

to clearly label all poisons
and drugs.

So this, in a sense,
is the beginning of

the sort of organised pharmacy.

Exactly, and it's
regulations like this

that helped build the public trust
in pharmacy that we have today.

Thankfully, the medicines
in our factory

are fully approved for
human consumption.

And they're tested and checked
at every stage,

to ensure they're safe.

Tell you what, it's all
happening here. Look in here!

I don't know what tablets they are,

but I tell you, it must be
a nightmare working here.

You can never phone in sick!

Although given the stuff here
can't just help themselves,

if they do have a headache,

they still have to nip out
to the chemist.

We're 35 minutes in,

and at the start of
the production line,

my batch of zesty medicine

is added to the honey
and sugar lozenger mix,

which is still a sizzling
130 degrees Celsius...

..before it emerges fully combined

in all its sticky splendour.

- Ay up, Rich. You all right, pal?
- Hello, Paddy.

I could stand here looking at that
pouring out of here all day.

And I can just see through there,
Rich, it's getting formed

into a sheet.

# I'm walking on sunshine, whoa! #

Oh, look at this!

# I'm walking on sunshine, whoa!

# And don't it feel good?

# Hey! #

Two glossy rivers
of lemon and honey mixture

are created by rollers
that squash the mix to 10mm thick.

Yes, that looks gorgeous. Love it!

This flexible strip
is then repeatedly folded over

to create
a gradually thicker ribbon of gold.

Starting to bring the temperature
down so it's malleable,

ready for forming.

The metal conveyor is sprayed
with warm water from underneath,

maintaining a steady temperature
of 45-55 degrees,

which slowly cools the lozenge mix
to 80 degrees Celsius.

I'll snap you a piece off
and then you can get a feel.

Oh, look at that!

Oh, that's good!

Oh-ho-ho! That is good, Rich!

Oh, and as I'm squashing it away
there,

I'm getting a lovely waft
of lemon and honey.

I really wish I could take this
with me all day and just do this.

But, of course,
health and safety won't allow it.

Spoilsports!

Woo!

I enjoyed that.

My stretchy strand of lozenge
now heads uphill

towards a pretty noisy part
of the factory.

- Oh, look at that.
- That's the snake
that you've seen on the belt.

- Yeah.
- So, the lozenge mix
is transporting

into what we call the batch former.

- That's amazing to look at that.
- There's four cylindrical rollers

building it all up,

starting to stretch it
and size it down for the next stage.

The batch former is stretching

the mixture
like a sticky, sugary dough,

wrapping it
round and round the roller

to make sure it's flexible enough
to be moulded into a lozenger.

Yeah, it's getting thinner
as it goes down, isn't it?

The rope of honey and lemon
is 9mm thick,

as it snakes off the rollers towards
an intriguing-looking piece of kit.

- This is the moulding machine.
- Right.

So, the rope comes in
at the bottom...

Inside the moulding machine,

the rope passes
into a circular metal die

with 68 sets of sharp
top and bottom teeth.

They close on the rope,

simultaneously cutting
the individual lozengers

and moulding them
into the correct shape.

Then, out of the machine
hurtle 8,300 lozengers every minute.

Wahey! Look at that!

I absolutely love that machine.

Like a machine gun
of throat lozengers.

Hours of fun.

- Can I get some off?
- Yeah, have a go.
- Get on this!

Hey! Look at that.

All them lozengers.

So, as you can see, Paddy,
that's a fully formed lozenge,

- but it is still really soft.
- Yeah.
- And this machine

what we're firing them into
is called the cooling conveyor.

As they travel
through the enclosed cooling tunnel,

the temperature
of my squidgy lozengers

is reduced from 80 degrees...

All the way.
I can see them all going down there.

Ah, here they are!

..to around 33 degrees Celsius.

So, this is the end
of our cooling tunnel.

We can get a sample off
at this point.

So, this is our finished lozenge.

- Do you want to feel that one, Paddy?
- Rock hard, ready to go.
- That's it.

No squashing them whatsoever.

So, every hour, we can produce
one million lozenges in the hour.

Really? I didn't know

there were that many people
in the UK with sore throats.

That is a fantastic pub fact.
Thank you very much, Richard.

I will bid you farewell,

and I'm going
to take that fact with me.

Every day's a school day.

Well, unless you're poorly,
of course.

Speaking of which, do you remember
when you were a kid

and you weren't feeling well,
and your mum and dad would stick

that big glass thermometer
under your tongue?

Well, Cherry's just finding out
how they work.

I'm in Cumbria,

on the western edge
of the Lake District,

home to
thermometer manufacturer Brannan.

They've been making these
traditional instruments since 1913.

Manufacturing Director
Juliet Taylor...

- Juliet, lovely to meet you.
- Hi, Cherry.

..is overseeing their production.

Do people still use
glass thermometers?

Yes. They're used in schools
for experiments

in their laboratories, throughout
the NHS and other industries.

For safety reasons,

we don't put glass thermometers
in our mouths any more.

But one of the company's
most popular products

is still the 305mm
glass laboratory thermometer.

Where does a thermometer
begin its life?

It begins as a length of glass.

Produced overseas,

the tubes are made
from toughened glass,

which won't crack
at high temperatures.

And they already have
a tiny channel inside,

ready for the thermometer's liquid.

That is a very, very tiny hole.
How big is it?

It's about the size of a human hair.

I'm amazed liquid can
even get up it.

- Well, you'll see that it does.
- It better do!
- Yes!

But first, the glass rods must
be cut down to size.

The tubes are rolled over flames
at 1,600 degrees Celsius,

melting the glass.

And, as it's heating it up,
it's pulling it apart.

The rods are divided in two
and sealed at the bottom,

which is then expanded
to create what is known as a bulb.

So, from here, you can see

that it's blowing the air
and making the bulb.

So, this is like
a teeny tiny little glass blower?

Yes, it is.

Yeah!

THEY LAUGH

With their newly formed bulbs,

the thermometers are now ready
to be filled

with one millilitre
of the all-important liquid

that will read
any change in temperature.

- Pop that one in there.
- All right. In it goes.

We fill this
with our low-tox liquid.

- What is LO-tox liquid?
- It's a kerosene-based liquid

that has been used to replace
the mercury that we used to use.

Mercury is very stable
and consistent when heated

and was used
in the first thermometer,

invented by Dutch physicist
Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1714.

Why don't we use mercury any more?

The vapours off it would
affect your brain function.

So it was deemed to be a poisonous
substance and was banned in 2014.

The kerosene used today is a safer,
petroleum-based product,

with a low freezing point
and a high boiling point.

It's poured into a bath

beneath the tiny holes
in our thermometers,

before they are placed
into a vacuum chamber.

Inside, the air is sucked
out of the tubes,

forcing the kerosene mix
up into the bulbs,

where it's held in place
because the atmospheric pressure

is greater on the outside
than on the inside.

It's like a magic trick.
Look at that!

That's absolutely incredible.

The bulbs are heated
to 70 degrees Celsius,

vaporising any excess liquid
from the tubes.

The tops are then heated again
to 1,200 degrees Celsius,

melting the glass and forever
sealing the liquid inside.

But how do thermometers
actually work?

Quality Control Manager
Jonathan Henderson...

- Nice to meet you, Jonathan.
- Hi.

..is in charge of calibration,

or making sure the thermometers
are reading temperature correctly.

At the moment, we've just got
a glass tube with some liquid in it.

How do you turn this
into a thermometer?

We need to create a reference point
on the glass tube.

To do this,

the kerosene liquid must move
up the inside of the thermometers,

and this is done by placing them
in a temperature-controlled bath.

Why does the liquid expand
up the tube?

So, as the liquid is heated up,
there are

little tiny atoms inside there,
and as they are heated,

they become more energetic.

So it's all about the atoms
getting hotter,

more excited, expanding,

- and then coming down
when it's cooler.
- Yep.

The bathwater is set
at 20 degrees Celsius,

and the kerosene rises
up the glass tube.

But due to variations
in each piece of glass,

it will rise to a different level
in each thermometer.

And once the liquid stabilises,
we're able to mark each thermometer.

This engraved mark
accurately records

each individual 20-degree reading.

I'm going to be very, very careful.
OK.

- Like that?
- Yep.
- Yep.

- Perfect.
- That's enough? Great.
I've contributed to science!

Look at me.

When these marks are complete,

they provide the exact position
for the temperature scale,

which is added to each thermometer
using a silkscreen printer.

Oh, there we go.

- How do you feel about that one?
- Perfect.

Perfect?

After a quick blast in an oven
to fire the ink into the glass,

our thermometers are finished.

Ooh, look at that.

Oh, look, I've just been
warming it up with my fingers,

and it's moving.

I mean, it's like it works!

- You would hope so, right?
- You would hope so!

Where is this going to end up?

So, this could go
anywhere in the world.

- We sell them to 130 different
countries around the world.
- Wow.

- A well-travelled thermometer?
- Hopefully, yes.

Back at the medicine factory,
I'm on the move too.

Lovely stacking.

I'm turning from lozengers to
tablets,

at the ibuprofen production line.

My word!
This is proper industrial in here.

I didn't expect it to be this noisy,
if I'm being honest.

In the mixing room,

Process Development Manager
Kathryn Staniforth

is getting ready
for the next batch of painkillers.

- This is massive, this room.
- It is.

- Very high-tech in here.
- It is quite high-tech.

So, what I need you to do, though,
first is put some gloves on.

- Please.
- Okie-doke. Right.

So, ibuprofen,

what's the difference between
a paracetamol and an ibuprofen?

Because I never know
which one to buy.

- Right. Both of them are painkillers.
- OK.
- Right?

But they both work
in different ways.

So, paracetamol actually works

by blocking pain receptors
in your brain.

- Yeah.
- What ibuprofen does -

say you twist your ankle
or sprain your wrist...

- Yeah.
- ..what your body does
is it produces chemicals

that cause inflammation
where that's happened,

and the ibuprofen
in your bloodstream,

they'll reduce those chemicals,

you reduce the inflammation,
you reduce the pain.

And so it works
in a different way to paracetamol.

Ibuprofen powder is sieved
along with the disintegrants

that help break down the tablets
in your stomach...

..and bulking agents that make
the tablets easier to handle

for both factory and consumer.

The powders are combined,
with Brian Mason at the controls,

before he drops the mix
into my mega bowl.

And you're going to need
a bit of muscle now,

because we're going to need you
to rake this forward.

- OK.
- The reason we rake this
is because we want it to be flat

when it goes into the drier.

- I'm looking forward to this.
- Right.

OK, Brian, off we go.

Go on, Brian. Release the Kraken.

Oh!

Here it comes. Oh, eh, up!

Here we go.

Look at that.

Blimey!

That does come out quick,
doesn't it?

You're having a field day up there,
Brian, aren't you?

He's working me.

- Yeah, a little bit more.
- Are you all right?

Getting a sweat on?

For God's sake, Brian,
slow it down. I'm not a machine!

- You need to get going there, Paddy.
- I know!
- Or it'll come out the back.

It's Brian up there. He's gone mad!

OK, just a little bit more.

Oh, it's not...
No good talking to Brian.

He just keeps going. He's a machine.
KATHRYN CHUCKLES

I think I need a couple
of spoonfuls of this, myself.

- All done.
- At this state,
it looks quite coarse

as to what it looks like

- when you break open a tablet
normally.
- Yeah.

It is a bit different to that
at the moment.

We've got some more stages
to go through.

So, we'll do a snowball test
on here,

because this will show us we've got
the right kind of consistency here.

- Did you say snowball test?
- Yes.
- I thought that's what you said.

You form a snowball. Right?

If it was too wet, you wouldn't
be able to form this.

If it was too dry,
you wouldn't be able to do it.

- Can you snap it in two like that?
- Ah!

And that shows us
that we've got a good granule here.

So that's a good one, that?

If it had all crumbled
out of your hands,

- it wouldn't have been right?
- Yeah. Exactly.

Do you want to get that end
and I'll get over here?

We'll have a little bit
of a snowball fight.

- No, we won't do that in here.
- Oh, they won't mind, will they?

No, no, I can't lose anything
out of here.

And the mix here, because we've done
all this mixing now,

this basically ensures
that we will have 200mg of ibuprofen

- in every tablet, when we make it.
- Got you.

- We've got to dry this off now next.
- Right, let's get it dried off.

- Yes.
- Any chance we can put Brian
in that drier?

No, we can't.

The mix still has 36% moisture,

so it's attached to a huge drier
that takes it down to 1.5%.

Then the dried granule is ready
to be transformed into tablets.

Do you want to get that door?

- This is our compressing machine.
- Ah!

We've got 18 of these machines
in the factory.

That's going round pretty,
pretty sharpish.

It is going round pretty fast.

In fact, it's too fast
to see what on Earth's going on.

Our granule is now sitting above us.

It's in one of the big bins,
and it's being gravity-fed

right down into the back of
the machine to fill up the punches,

they're called.

We've got 45
of these upper and lower punches.

- Yeah.
- They rotate round
and pick up some of the granule.

Then what happens is

a great big load of force
slams it all together -

basically about one tonne
of force...

- One tonne?
- ..and that slams it together

and that tablet is formed -
it's got its shape then.

- And is that then finished, then?
- Not quite.

I was just going to say,
because they've got a shine on,

they look smooth,
but when you feel them,

- you can still feel a little bit
chalky.
- A little bit chalky.

Yes, you can. So, we've got
one more stage after this.

- Lead on, Kathryn.
- Come on, then.
- Lead on.

The tablets are transported

to what looks
like a space-age laundrette.

Look at this!

Let me introduce you to Barry,
our operator in here.

How are you, Barry?
Very nice to meet you, pal. You OK?

So, what we've done,
we've taken the tablets

and we've put them
into these five coating pans,

and they're tumbling around
at the moment.

And we're going
to add some sugar syrup to them.

Is this the sugar solution
that goes on it?

Yes. So, that's a mixture
of sucrose and water.

And we're going to apply that
to the tablet.

And there's two reasons
why we do this -

- cos ibuprofen is
actually very bitter...
- Right.

..so that helps it to be swallowed.

And also, the smooth shell
that's on there will help it

to be swallowed as well.

Weirdly, now as you've said it,
when I pop one in my mouth,

you do get
that little bit of sweetness.

It just makes it
a little bit more pleasant.

Absolutely. And we've got
to add some more sugar syrup to it,

to help build up
the coat of the tablet.

Blimey!

- As far back as you can reach.
- Right in?

Yes, right in.

There she goes.

The sugar coating is gradually
built up across six to eight hours,

with a total of 20 jugs
slowly added to each pan

to make the tablet sweeter,
smoother and rounder.

- There we go.
- There you go.

Every dr... I'll just go in
and inspect me work a minute,

- Kathryn.
- OK.

I'll look at these
for six to eight hours, and...

- I'll see you later.
- ..I'll see you in a bit.

I'll make sure every single one's
got an even coating on.

I might need one
of them empty buckets back here -

I'm feeling a bit queasy.

After a serious amount of tumbling,
my sugar-coated tablets

are getting ready
for a bit of a bounce around.

- Here we are, Paddy.
- Ah.
- Here's our finished tablets.

- They've been coated.
- Looking very nice and shiny.

# I just want to make
the whole world bounce

# Bounce, bounce, bounce

# Bounce, bounce, bounce,
bounce, bounce, bounce

# Make you bounce, bounce

# Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce...
#

The tablets are vibrated
into snugly fitting trays...

# Make you bounce, bounce

# Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce...
#

..where they're held in place

as a rubber roller
covered in food-safe ink

prints the product name.

# Make the whole world bounce

# Make you bounce... #

So, they're being printed -
about 460,000 tablets per hour

- at the moment.
- The numbers are just mind-blowing.

They are.

Then they're checked
by a close-up camera,

before being plucked out
of the moulds by suction cups.

As you can see here now,
we've got these nice, shiny tablets.

Yeah, they look great, them,
Kathryn.

Would you like to know a fact
about ibuprofen?

I would love a fact about ibuprofen!

Ibuprofen was actually invented
here in Nottingham.

- Do you know who else knows that?
- Who?

A very lovely lady called Ruth.

Over to you.

To you.

To me?

To you.

The year is 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II
has been crowned at the age of 27.

Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing

have become
the first to conquer Mount Everest.

And here in Nottingham,
a small team of British scientists

are about to embark
on their own incredible journey.

This unassuming Victorian house was
their rather unlikely laboratory.

To find out more,
I'm meeting Professor David Adams...

- Hello.
- Hello, Ruth.
Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.

..a scientist himself, and the son
of one of these pioneers.

I have to say, this seems a rather
suburban location

for a pharmaceutical story.

It is, isn't it?

Very different to a modern
pharmaceutical research department.

So, why on Earth was your father
working in a suburban house?

Well, he was a scientist
working for Boots.

The Boots Pure Drug Company,
as they were then called.

This was just after the war,

so a lot of their departments
had been evacuated

- out of the centre of Nottingham...
- Right.
- ..because of the bombing.

- I see.
- And the research department
was relocated

- to this house
down by the River Trent.
- House!

I'm ashamed to say
I've never been here before.

So this is quite an experience
for me.

- Shall we go and have a look?
- Yes, let's.

By the early 1950s,

Boots was not only an established
high street brand

but had begun making
pharmaceuticals.

The former owner of the company,
Jesse Boot,

was a sufferer
of rheumatoid arthritis,

an autoimmune disease that causes
painful inflammation of the joints.

31 years after his death,

Boots gathered
some of their brightest minds,

including David's father,
Dr Stewart Adams,

in this unlikely laboratory...

Oh, goodness!

..and tasked them
with finding a cure

for the debilitating condition.

You can't believe
it was ever a research lab, can you?

No, you really can't.

I think this is
where the original laboratory was.

And then they extended
into the larder in the kitchen

when they needed more space.

- It's remarkable.
- It's extraordinary!

That's my father working away.
And that was taken here.

I mean, it looked even more domestic
then than it did now.

I don't even know
what this equipment is.

It appears to be a hot plate.
Some agar plates.

It's not exactly high-tech, is it?

No, no.
It definitely wasn't high-tech.

The house wasn't perfect,
even succumbing to regular flooding.

But David's father and his team
set about testing

thousands of chemical compounds

in the search
for a cure for arthritis.

Dad wanted to find something
which suppressed that inflammation,

which, he thought that inflammation
was closely linked with pain.

And one route to do this
was to focus around aspirin.

Discovered in 1897, aspirin had
been used with some success

to target the pain of arthritis.

And Dr Adams was convinced

a compound
in the same chemical family

might hold the key to the cure.

Well, they tested
a whole range of compounds

and, unfortunately,

none of these had the kind
of anti-inflammatory activity

they were looking for.

- OK.
- So they had to change tack,

and they looked
at a different series of compounds.

Six years
after starting their research,

Adams and his team
had to begin their search again,

effectively from scratch.

I mean, it must have been
so frustrating to just keep going,

"This one? No. This one? No.
This one? No!"

- Over and over.
- Yeah.

Research is a...is a slow - and can
be a very frustrating process.

But in 1961, the team struck gold,

discovering the drug
that we now know as ibuprofen.

Although not the cure
David's father was looking for,

thanks to its anti-inflammatory
properties,

it provided much-needed pain relief
to arthritis sufferers.

And in 1969,

the year Concorde first took
to the skies...

..this new miracle pain reliever
finished eight years

of clinical trials,

and was finally made available
under the brand name Brufen.

Sophie Clapp is in charge
of Boots' vast archive.

Brufen was launched
as a prescription-only drug in 1969.

It really put Boots on the map

in terms
of a pharmaceutical researcher.

So we absolutely wanted
to make people aware

of this incredibly effective drug.

But David's father didn't
stop there.

He saw much wider potential
for this new wonder drug.

It was tested as a treatment
for sports injuries,

so he worked closely
with Oxford United Football Club.

It was tested for dental pain.

It was tested as a treatment
for period pain.

In 1983,

and 30 years
after Dr Stewart Adams began

his research in that suburban house,

the Department of Health approved
the sale of ibuprofen

over the counter,
under the brand name Nurofen.

It meant that it became
an absolute stalwart

of everybody's
home medicine cabinet.

And how big a deal
is ibuprofen worldwide?

So, within five or six years,

we were selling it
in 90 different countries.

The proof of the pudding
being in the eating!

- Did your dad use ibuprofen?
- Yes, he did.

You couldn't have a headache
in the Adams household

without being given ibuprofen.

He was very proud
of what he'd achieved,

but he always felt
that he'd been a slight failure,

because he set out to find a cure
for rheumatoid arthritis,

and he discovered a drug
that has been really helpful

in treating rheumatoid arthritis,
plus a host of other conditions,

but he didn't find a cure.

But I don't think he did too badly,
really, did he?

You can say that again!

Eight billion ibuprofen are made
at this factory every year.

While the painkillers
are being boxed up...

..I'm heading to see
my honey and lemon lozengers.

But before they get their packaging,

Area Team Leader Marc Watkins
is doing some final checks.

- Ay up, Mark.
- How we doing, Paddy?
- Are you all right?
- Yeah, good.

- What's this lad doing?
- This lad is our track operator.

If there's any bad lozenges
in there,

he'll remove it out
and put a good one in.

- What's a bad lozenger?
- A bad lozenge
is anything with a chip.

And if you fancy it, Paddy,
you can have a go yourself.

Watch and learn!

So, if you take a handful
of our good lozenges, Paddy...

- There's a good one.
- ..anything you see with a chip,

flick it out
and then put a good one in.

Great. Here we go.

Get in here.

Oh! Oh!

Hey, get out, you little rascal!

- Get here!
- Wahey!
- Hey!

Oh, there's another one. Get out!

You missed one then.

- Where? Where? Where?
- You missed it. It's gone.

Where were you, Marc?
You're supposed to be my wingman!

- There you go.
- Where?
- Pick it up!

- No!
- Oh!

I felt as though I were
back at the bingo halls

when I were a kid there, with me mum.

- Two dobbers, one in each hand.
- Dibbers and dobbers. Love that!

I'll leave it to the expert.

That is a skill.

I didn't even know he had
any lozengers in his other hand.

- Under his hand.
- That's bonkers.

Should be a musician.

Good sleight of hand.

- Sleight of hand.
- He's fantastic, this lad.

Like a young Paul Daniels.

A clever camera catches
any defects missed by the human eye.

Especially mine.

Then they're dropped
into plastic blister packs,

before being sealed with foil...

..and the packs are cut into
sections containing 12 lozengers.

The perfectly formed blisters are
coming down the packing line now.

Look at that. Beautiful.

Why blister packs?

Because it's a medicine, you have to
keep the integrity of the product

exactly as it was
when it was first packed.

So, you can pop one of those out,

and all the ones around it
stay perfectly sealed.

Well, let's just do that.
Here we go. Big moments.

Oh.

Lovely pop on that, Marc.

The rest is sealed up.

Like a little
medicine advent calendar, that.

And there it is. Ready to go.
Ready to soothe.

- Beautiful, that.
- Lovely.
- Thank you very much.

- Nice one. Cheers, buddy.
- Take care, mate. Ta-ra, pal.

Two sealed packs are
stacked together,

an instruction leaflet is added

with the correct dosage
clearly listed...

..and the flat box is date-stamped
before everything is dropped inside.

Then it's off
for one last round of tests

and safety checks...

..before they join my ibuprofen
at dispatch.

And at last, I can change
out of my PPE Santa suit.

PADDY WHISTLES

- You all right, Paddy?
- You all right?
- It's Rich.

I've just been showing you
round the factory.

My God, I didn't recognise you
with your clothes on!

- How are you, Rich?
- I'm all right.
Thank you.

- You?
- Yeah. Right, loaded up.

It looks to me like we've got
a mixture of ibuprofen

- and throat lozengers on there.
- That's right.

On each pallet of lozenges,
we've got 6,450 individual lozenges.

And on each pallet of ibuprofen,
we've got 16,800 units.

So...

HORN HONKS

Hey. Excuse me.

So, how many individual tablets
and lozengers are on there, then?

So, that trailer will take
58 different pallets.

- Yeah.
- So, all together we can do

4.5 million lozenges
and 7.8 million tablets.

PADDY EXHALES LOUDLY

Even for this programme,
that's a lot of big numbers.

And get this, with seven lorries
leaving every day,

that's 31.5 million lozengers
and 54.5 million tablets.

So, I presume in winter
that number goes up,

because that'll be
your busiest time, won't it? Winter?

Yeah, winter's busier
for cold and flu,

but as a business

we produce to both the southern
and northern hemispheres.

- Right.
- So, when it's summer here,
it's winter somewhere else.

So it means we're busy
all year round.

- You're constantly going with it?
- Correct, yeah.

Well, Rich,
thanks for showing me round, pal.

I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Go and get yourself
a well-earned cuppa.

- Cheers, Paddy.
- See you in a bit, bud.

Right, send 'em off!

Eight hours and 35 minutes
after the start of production,

my cold and flu medicines
are heading out of the factory

to soothe sore throats

and ease aches and pains
across the world.

That's a lot of people
with the lurgy

who will soon be feeling better.

And after I've done one last lap
around my favourite factory doors...

Oh! Ah.

..I just need to round up the crew

who like to peel off their PPE
at the end of a long day.

For God's sake,
put your clothes back on!

# Bring me sunshine in your smile

# Bring me laughter all the while

# Let your arms be as warm
as the sun from up above

# Bring me fun, bring me sunshine

# Bring me love, sweet love

# Bring me fun, bring me sunshine

# Bring me love

# Hey! #