Novasep invests 30 million euros in world's largest chromatography plant

The world's largest chromatography plant will be built in Europe thanks to a 30 million euro (£24.2 million) investment by Novasep.

Established as a provider of purification based manufacturing solutions for life-science molecules, the company's funding for the plant will enable it to produce a huge volume of commercial API (active pharmaceutical ingredient).

It will be built on Novasep's existing Mourenx site in France and aims to be operational within 18 months.

The rapid boost in demand for a large volume, highly purified API led to the plant's quick expansion and the development of an advanced purification process.

For over 20 years, the firm has forged continuous chromatography for pharma manufacturing.

The company's continuous chromatography technologies, such as SMB and Varicol, are presently utilised for the commercial scale production of several chiral APIs.

Novasep's engineering team designed the new plant, which will include Varicol systems with 1,200 mm diameter columns operated at up to 70 bars.

This will be the largest plant ever built in the pharmaceutical industry and will manufacture a highly purified form of API from a complex mixture.

It will be cost-effective and environmentally friendly, as its systems will integrate sophisticated solvent recovery systems for the 99.9 per cent recycling of solvents.

"This successful project, the world's largest chromatography plant in the pharmaceutical industry, demonstrates the validity of the strategy which is based on the combination of synthesis, biosynthesis and purification," said president and chief executive officer Patrick Glaser.

Mr Glaser thanked the firm's institutional partners and shareholders for their active support of this huge project.

Novasep's 30 million euro contribution follows two other key investments in 2012.

The first is a new 2,000 m2 facility in Shanghai, China and the second is a three million euro expansion plan for the Highly Potent API (HPAPI) manufacturing capabilities at the facility in Le Mans, France.

Posted by Fiona Griffiths