NPIL launches high efficiency chiral technology
Pharma custom manufacturer NPIL Pharma (UK) has introduced an important new catalyst-based racemisation technology - SCRAM - for producing chiral amines and alcohols. With almost 50% of all new drugs containing at least one chiral centre, the new technology has potential to deliver significantly improved process yields, bringing major savings in industry cost and environmental waste, the company says.
Pharma custom manufacturer NPIL Pharma (UK) has introduced an important new catalyst-based racemisation technology - SCRAM - for producing chiral amines and alcohols. With almost 50% of all new drugs containing at least one chiral centre, the new technology has potential to deliver significantly improved process yields, bringing major savings in industry cost and environmental waste, the company says.
When combined with a resolution technology, SCRAM racemisation catalyst converts inactive enantiomer material back into usable solution. This offers substantially improved process yields, efficiency and ruggedness, with corresponding lower starting material costs, solvent consumption and process waste. SCRAM benefits apply equally to early/late phase clinical and launched product manufacturing.
Developed by an NPIL Pharma team at the ex-Avecia facility in Huddersfield, UK, the highly flexible catalyst technology can either be 'bolted on' to existing resolution processes or used as a commercially attractive alternative to asymmetric synthesis.
Laboratory studies have illustrated application to currently manufactured drugs that, if widely implemented, could result in cost savings measured in millions of pounds and reduction of process waste on a scale thousands of tonnes.
To develop and extend SCRAM-based technology, NPIL Pharma (UK) has recently received a £500,000 r&d grant from regional development agency Yorkshire Forward - which matches its own research investment. The two-year project will look to develop SCRAM racemisation and linked resolution technologies to full commercialisation in pharma intermediate production. The project will also explore wider applications, notably in the high-productivity area of continuous flow processing, in combination with bio and chemocatalysis.
'Based on a stable catalyst and a simple, robust process, SCRAM fits the major agendas of both sustainability and cost-of-goods.' said NPIL Pharma (UK) technology director Dr John Blacker. 'SCRAM is easily coupled to existing production set-ups, and its ease and speed of application to both early and late-phase operations underlines the breadth of its potential.'