Bristol Myers Squibb has begun working with the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) to develop more efficient manufacturing routes.
The partnership will support Bristol Myers in its work to discover new catalysts, which will assist the company in developing novel pharmaceutical manufacturing routes that are both sustainable, efficient and cost-effective.
Through the agreement, the two will work together until 2027.
To support this project, the National Science Foundation awarded UTSA USD $615,000 in funding through the GOALI programme, which aims to foster collaborations between academic institutes and industry partners.
During the project, Bristol Myers Squibb and UTSA will focus on discovering and developing novel catalysts that can manage the chemical reactivity of a range of pharma-relevant compounds.
Bristol Myers will use its high-throughput experimentation capabilities to allow scientists to conduct thousands of reactions per week.
VP of Chemical Process Development, Michael Hobbs, commented: “BMS is excited to extend our partnership with Professor Frantz and his research group. The GOALI program will enable continuation and expansion of an already successful collaboration with a number of positive benefits for both the organizations and students involved in the research.”
Doug Frantz, the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Endowed Chair of Chemistry and principal investigator on the project, added: “The broader impacts this funding from the NSF will have on my students, the UTSA Department of Chemistry and the team of outstanding scientists at BMS cannot be overstated,”
“This award from the NSF will support our ongoing and highly successful collaboration with BMS and catalyse new discoveries at the forefront of synthetic organic chemistry while also providing a unique experiential training programme for undergraduate and graduate students here at UTSA.”