PharmaBlock Opens New Chemistry and Engineering Technology Center in Zhejiang, China

Nanjing-based PharmaBlock Sciences opened a new Chemistry and Engineering Technology Center (CETC) located next to its GMP manufacturing site in Shangyu, Zhejiang Province, China, the company said in an April 13, 2020 press release. The 32,300-ft²technology center is dedicated to developing greener, safer chemistries for manufacturing pharmaceutical raw materials and intermediates. The CETC will focus on flow chemistry, micropacked bed reaction, biocatalysis, and other engineering technologies, including separation, crystallization, and application of process simulation.

Micropacked bed technology with flow hydrogenation is applied in lab, pilot, and manufacturing scales at PharmaBlock. "Micropacked beds have been successfully applied to the development and manufacturing of several dozen of our projects. We have seen many superiorities [a] micropacked bed creates over conventional methods: lower safety risk, lower waste, cost and space saving, consistent quality, and robust process with simple control," said Yuanping Jie, head of the CETC, in the press release. "In addition to the existing 5-L and 10-L micropacked bed reactors designed by our in-house engineering team, the CETC will add more scale-up equipment, expand the application into more reaction types, such as oxidation, and enhance the automated mode to further ensure safety and high efficiency."

The CETC will also be used to optimize the scale-up process of PharmaBlock's building blocks for clinical and commercial drug manufacturing.