Arcinova has received a £1.5 million Innovate UK grant for the development of new flexible modular manufacturing technologies, a project which is set to demonstrate the operating feasibility of world first innovative continuous production tools.

The three-year projec will be carried out in collaboration with a team led by Professor Mike George, with Professors Pete Licence and Sir Martyn Poliakoff at the University of Nottingham. 

The aim of the project is to develop a continuous, flexible modular manufacturing technology platform which will enable Arcinova to handle increasingly complex chemistries with more discreet manufacturing steps. The platform will be used in manufacturing operations where manufacturing inventories need to be kept low and product purity needs to be maximized, where manufacturing throughput and efficiency are maintained at a high level and equipment changeover can be rapidly facilitated to cope with low batch numbers.

The developed continuous modular manufacturing technology will be easily scalable, with a reduced manufacturing footprint when compared to more traditional, batch reactor approaches. The developed technologies will enable Arcinova to enhance manufacturing capacity and minimize inventories for highly reactive hazardous processes whereas for a batch process the reaction scale would be severely constrained

“I have spent over 20 years championing the way that pharmaceuticals are manufactured in the UK and have been an enthusiastic advocate for new manufacturing technologies including continuous manufacturing and synthetic biology as enablers for new and radically different pharmaceutical production approaches,” said Ian Shott, chief executive officer, Arcinova.

Mike George, professor of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, said, “My colleagues and I at Nottingham are firmly convinced that flow chemistry can transform chemical manufacture in the UK and this partnership with Arcinova is an opportunity to turn our vision into reality.”