The collaboration – which was announced earlier this week – began after a successful test of Britest’s analysis and efficiency boosting technologies at the contract manufacturing organisation’s (CMO) active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production site in Cramlington, Northumberland.
Aesica told in-Pharmatechnologist.com that: “The study highlighted a number of areas that required further investigation, and some solutions were relatively easy to implement. Within a few weeks of the study, we had increased the capacity of an intermediate by almost 10% without the requirement of capital expenditure.
“The study also highlighted a number of other areas that show potential for further capacity and cost improvements. These will be investigated in the laboratory before implementation at commercial scale.”
Aesica declined to give specifics of the ongoing collaboration but did confirm that it will “have access to the existing suite of Britest tools and methodologies to improve current operations” It added that it “also has the opportunity to contribute to the definition and development of new Britest tools."
The CMO explained that under the innovation programme “Britest owns the generic IP in the tools and methodologies on behalf of all members. Any process-related IP generated through the application of the Britest tools and methodologies by Aesica is owned by Aesica.”
IP portfolio
Britest aims to promote innovation in process design through its own IP and through collaboration with manufacturers.
The organisation already counts Big Pharmas like Pfizer, GSK and AstraZeneca and claims its technologies have delivered $1bn (€758m) worth of process improvements to firms it has worked with over the last 11 years.
Aesica joins US-based Albany Molecular Research (AMRI) as the second CMO to publically announce its plan to work with Britest.
News of the collaboration follows just days after the UK contractor teamed up with researchers at the Universities of Durham and Leeds in a project designed to find operational cost efficiencies and increase capacity at the Cramlington site.