Description of impact
Apollo Scientific is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fluorine containing chemical intermediates. The synthesis and supply of innovative intermediates, in order to support and facilitate the design of new pharmaceutical products and the incubation of R&D programmes within pharmaceutical companies, is a key component of the service that the company offers. Part of the company’s core business is the conversion of fluorinated organic molecules into a range of downstream, value added chemical intermediates for supply to pharmaceutical companies for incorporation into their new drug screening programmes. Bangor University (BioComposites Centre) has been collaborating with Dr. Phil Walker (Apollo Scientific Ltd) to synthesise a range of low molecular weight chemical intermediates, for sale to companies across the globe, so that their functional properties can be screened in order to assess the potential to incorporate them into pharmaceutical, veterinary and agrochemical products.Impact Summary for the General Public
Bangor University (BioComposites Centre) has been collaborating with Apollo Scientific Ltd to synthesise a range of low molecular weight chemical intermediates, for sale to companies across the globe, so that their functional properties can be screened in order to assess the potential to incorporate them into pharmaceutical, veterinary and agrochemical productsDescription of the underpinning research
Apollo Scientific is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fluorine containing chemical intermediates. The synthesis and supply of innovative intermediates, in order to support and facilitate the design of new pharmaceutical products and the incubation of R&D programmes within pharmaceutical companies, is a key component of the service that the company offers. Part of the company’s core business is the conversion of fluorinated organic molecules into a range of downstream, value added chemical intermediates for supply to pharmaceutical companies for incorporation into their new drug screening programmes.Beneficiaries and reach of impact
Many pharmaceutical companies out-source the syntheses of these chemical intermediates to specialist chemical companies such as Apollo Scientific, in the early stage development of new APIs (Active pharmaceutical ingredients). Apollo Scientific specialises in the synthesis and supply of families of chemical intermediates that have closely related chemical structures, which are called libraries. When screening APIs during the design of new pharmaceuticals, access to a range of libraries is important because slight changes in chemical structure can have dramatic changes in the properties of the final product, including human toxicity, lipid solubility and compatibility with other components in the formulation.Bangor University has worked closely with Apollo Scientific on the design and synthesis of new families of compounds for use in API screening. Following the screening process, successful candidate molecules are synthesised in larger quantities for incorporation into batches of the pharmaceutical product and under conditions of strict quality control called cGMP (current good manufacturing practice). Apollo Scientific has a cGMP accredited laboratory and this is where some of the chemical intermediates produced initially by Bangor University, have subsequently been manufactured at larger (pilot scale).
General Notes
Bangor University has synthesised ~300 new compounds for Apollo Scientific during the collaboration. These have been sold to a range of pharmaceutical, veterinary and agrochemicals companies across the world (see below):Chemical intermediates synthesised by Bangor University: Sales breakdown by country and number of customers that purchased intermediates:
UK (64), USA (30), Germany (25), India (22), France (19), Spain (9), Switzerland (9), Italy (8), Poland (7), China (7), Japan (6), Belgium (6), Hungary (6), Sweden (6), Netherlands (6), Canada (5), South Korea (4), Austria (2), Singapore (2), Israel (2), Ukraine (2), Latvia (2), New Zealand (2), Slovenia (1), Denmark (1), Ireland (1), Bulgaria (1), Croatia (1), Finland (1),
Australia (1).
| Impact status | Ongoing |
|---|---|
| Category of impact | Technological |