Collaboration with University College Dublin further expands its continuous flow platform

Craigavon, N.I., 22 Jul 2020 - Almac Sciences, a member of the Almac Group, “CATCH”es a prestigious Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Industry Fellowship in collaboration with University College Dublin’s (UCD) flow chemistry specialist, Dr. Marcus Baumann.

The Industry Fellowship Programme aims to enhance industry-academia collaborations through funding of research projects focused on knowledge exchange to drive excellence and innovation throughout Ireland.

CATCH – derived from continuous biocatalysed chemicals - underlines a commitment to develop new sustainable technologies that enables the competitive, and environmentally friendly, manufacture of chemical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) via the synergetic marriage of continuous flow and biocatalytic processes.

Upon winning the Fellowship, Dr. Baumann commented:

“This project will enhance my academic profile by extending my research portfolio into industrially relevant fields through close collaboration with a world leading industrial partner like Almac.”

Professor Tom Moody, VP Technology Development and Commercialisation at Almac Sciences and Arran Chemical Company further commented:

“The CATCH strategy will continue our commitment to exploit sustainable biocatalytic processes to synthesise chemicals in an on-demand flow fashion, thereby minimising the amount of by-products formed and demonstrating the synergies between our flow chemistry and biocatalysis platforms. Importantly, the CATCH project will continue to strengthen industrial and academic know-how in this exciting field.”

Almac’s flow chemistry experts, Dr. Scott Wharry and Dr. Megan Smyth, are delighted to be working with Dr Baumann and his team at UCD.  This news comes in addition to  their existing collaboration with Queen’s University Belfast in the area of flow research (APPFlow), which secured a Horizon 2020 funded Innovative Training Network (ITN) Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme to support 4 PhD studentships over 4 years.

The expertise developed throughout this project will further expand Almac’s existing flow chemistry platform ensuring Almac continues to offer customers the best available technology to meet their demanding processing needs today, tomorrow and in the future.

About Almac Group

The Almac Group is an established contract development and manufacturing organisation providing an extensive range of integrated services across the drug development lifecycle to the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors globally. Its innovative services range from R&D, biomarker discovery development and commercialisation, API manufacture, analytical services, formulation development, clinical trial supply, IRT (IVRS/IWRS) through to commercial-scale manufacture.

The international company is a privately owned organisation which has grown organically over the past five decades now employing over 5,600 highly skilled personnel across 18 facilities including Europe, the US and Asia.

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