Microreaction System Nears Launch

Uniqsis Ltd., the Cambridge-based company formed in January 2007 to develop a new concept in microreaction flow chemistry has announced major progress towards launching FlowSyn™ later in the year.

Martyn Fordham, CEO said “Development of FlowSyn, our new fully integrated flow reaction platform, is entering its final phase. Pre-production units are already undergoing evaluation in-house and in several pharmaceutical and academic laboratories around the UK. FlowSyn will be introduced to the scientific community and the technical press at an event we are hosting in early October, with workshops and presentations from leading scientists in the field.”

Fordham also announced that the Uniqsis team has been strengthened by the arrival of Dr. Otman Benali from GSK’s Technology Development department, where he has been working on enabling technologies to speed up drug discovery processes, with a major focus on Microreaction Technology (MRT). He was involved in validating most of the commercially available flow chemistry equipment and brings that invaluable experience to Uniqsis to guide the FlowSyn engineering team.

According to Benali “Micro reactors have distinct advantages over batch processes. They offer improved mixing and heat transfer which leads to excellent reproducibility. Scale-up becomes much easier, with less re-optimisation, and fewer problems with unstable intermediates or highly exothermic reactions. It’s also easier to add additional features such as on-line analysis or pressurization. Most fine chemical companies are aware of these benefits and were interested in its implementation when I joined GSK in 2002 but there was then no suitable commercial instrumentation available. We’re confident that FlowSyn will be a useful tool for the chemist. Because it is a new technology, training and information exchange will be a key element of our plans to help users capitalise on its benefits.”

Uniqsis Ltd. is an alliance between Asynt, the specialist supplier of organic synthesis apparatus, and Grant Instruments (Cambridge) Ltd., the long established scientific equipment manufacturer.