Aesica Consortium Wins Technology Strategy Board Grant

Aesica’s

consortium with Charnwood Technical Consulting, CatScI, and Biocatalysts, has won a Technology Strategy Board grant directed at funding sustainable, high-value chemical manufacturing achieved through industrial biotechnology. The winning project is focused on establishing an industrialbiotechnology process aimed at improving the sustainability of the manufacture of APIs.

The grant is designed to both assist commercial entities in trialing new processes and to create demonstration scale prototypes. The overall project, valued at £200,000 (approximately $335,000), is scheduled for completion in 2014.

The funding for the project meets the Technology Strategy Board’s objective of collaborations between chemical sectors and industrial biotechnology developers, combining biological and chemical practices. Biocatalysts will use design for manufacture principles to discover, develop, and manufacture new enzymes for the production of APIs. CatScI will perform the proof of concept studies to assess the feasibility of a value-adding new industrial biotechnology route to an API. Charnwood Technical Consulting will provide expertise to help design and scale-up the process, as well as guidance on quality and regulatory issues. Aesica will manage the overall project and carry out scale-up studies to determine the probability of the technology at larger scale.

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