Arch adds first plant scale SMB in India

18-Oct-2009 - Last updated on 19-Oct-2009 at 08:30 GMT

Arch Pharmalabs is continuing its push to serve innovative pharma by adding simulated moving bed (SMB) technology, becoming the first in India to offer the offer the system for plant scale API manufacture.

Speaking to Outsourcing-Pharma at CPhI 2009 Raj Iyer, president of Arch, explained that the company began targeting innovative pharma companies around three years ago, having previously focused on generics businesses.

Since then it has formed a biocatalysis alliance with Codexis, a collaboration with DSM and added high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) capacity to better serve innovators.

At CPhI Arch revealed it has supplemented this technology by installing SMB technology. Arch decided to add SMB, through a strategic partnership with Orochem Technologies, to manufacture a late stage API for a US pharma innovator.

Iyer described the contract with the pharma as “a daunting challenge” but added that Arch has very quickly assimilated and used SMB technology. He added that only a handful of companies have this capacity and Arch believes it will allow it to “carve out a niche” in the market.

The process of developing the system from meeting the US innovator through the scale up took almost a year but Iyer was keen to stress the installation goes beyond demonstrating the technological capabilities at Arch.

He explained that SMB will be used to “solve practical problems in late stage development”, adding that Arch is already using the technology in a number of projects for big pharma mid stage therapeutics.

Iyer added that SMB is a “very powerful”green technology that allows the user to recycle up to 90 per cent of the solvent. By recycling the cost and environmental impact of the operation is reduced.

Alliance with Orochem

Arch has added SMB through an alliance with Orochem, a manufacturing technology and services company. Orochem helps with screening and transfer, according to Iyer who added that he believes the deal puts “Arch in a strong position” in the industry.

Iyer explained that Arch has the capabilities to provide innovators with complete life cycle support and that its technologies are a “vital component” of its growth platform.

The deal fits with Arch’s policy of installing “value added technologies”, which also saw the company add HPAPI capacity earlier this year. Iyer said that the top 20 pharma companies have up to 150 HPAPI compounds in clinical development.