Vapourtec add-ons put spotlight on Flow Chemistry
available as the company make headway in an emerging field, which
aims to speed up laboratory processes in drug discovery.
The new pumping module and software strengthens the response to the pressures facing the results-orientated pharma industry, where the need for speed, especially at the laboratory stage of drug development, is key to commercial success. Vapourtec's R Series Flow Chemistry platform, when integrated with a UV detector and a fraction collector, allows the chemist to run completely automated reaction optimisation experiments without any manual intervention. In this way, medicinal chemists in the drug discovery field are able to optimise reaction speeds without the scale up problems associated with the more popular microwave chemistry. The R2+ pumping module itself serves to increase accuracy metering over 2 channels, as well as an output collection valve and an air bubble detection system. The module also includes a function that allows the use of sample injection loops. This makes it possible to run reactions using miniscule reagent amounts or to use concentrated mineral acids not normally compatible with the pumps. Users can then add the Flow Commander PC-based software, which controls the whole system, offering easy setup, logging and reporting of reaction parameters. When it comes to reaction scale-up, the software does all the necessary flow calculations, leaving the user to simply fit a larger reactor. "Vapourtec started developing the R Series more than 2 years ago," said a spokesperson for Vapourtec. "We realised that few users would go out and buy a fully integrated system straight off as their first investment." Hence the R Series offers a low risk route from entry level right up to fully integrated platform." Continuous chemistry has been widely used in larger scale chemical manufacture for a long time, but flow chemistry in the drug discovery lab setting has only really started to take off in the past year or two as chemists look to ease the pressure of getting drugs through the whole lab process quicker. However, the Vapourtec spokersperson explained, the biggest single obstacle to widespread adoption at present was the lack of familiarity many chemists had with flow chemistry. "There is a perceived learning curve with flow chemistry," he said. "Many labs are still at the 'dipping a toe in the water,' stage right now. Market reports on the technology are not yet really available, but 2008 is expected to see significant growth." As a sign of its increasing importance, last September saw pharma giants Novartis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) launch a 10-year $65m (€44.4m) research collaboration aimed at transforming the way pharmaceuticals are produced. The 10-year partnership, known as the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, are working to develop new technologies that could replace the conventional batch-based system in the pharmaceuticals industry - which often includes many interruptions and work at separate sites - with continuous manufacturing processes from start to finish. "We hope to make available soon a facility to add an auto-sampler, enabling the optimisation to proceed across different reagents as well as different parameter values," he added. "It's another step designed specifically to grow as user's needs demand it, offering an accessible entry level that can then be built upon to create a fully integrated automated platform in the future without any investment already made being wasted."
