Sterling Pharma Solutions Set to Create Center of Excellence in Continuous Flow Chemistry in UK

Sterling Pharma Solutions, a global contract development and manufacturing organization, has completed the initial phase of investment to create a center of excellence for research into commercial applications of continuous flow chemistry at its site in Dudley, United Kingdom.

The investment, which was announced in a Sept. 8, 2021 press release, follows on from the appointment of Professor Ian R. Baxendale as a team leader for a group of chemists and engineers that are dedicated to continuous flow chemistry. A focus for the team will be on the rapid and successful development of processes to kilogram scale initially with a view to future industrialization. The installation of multiple flow chemistry platforms into a research laboratory at the Dudley site has been completed to allow for the investigation of a wide range of chemical processes.

“Flow chemistry has the potential to open up applications within commercial pharmaceutical manufacturing that are currently used only within research and development or academic applications,” commented Mark Muldowney, head of technology and innovation at Sterling, in the press release. “We are seeing significant interest in continuous flow development and production from customers and our goal is to provide scale-up expertise to leverage the benefits this technology has to offer in terms of efficiency, safety, and economics.”