"IP & Technologies"
Being creative and innovate is part of the ethos at Excelsyn and for long term supply we are always interested in technologies that help to improve the efficiencies of our processes with the target of lowering the cost of goods for manufactured materials. The team at Excelsyn has developed a number of technologies, some of which are patented, that offer particular advantages in the areas of unnatural amino acids and other related, chiral building blocks.

Patented Intellectual Property
These patent families cover both chemical technologies and biotechnologies which complement themselves at different stages of the clinical progression of a new chiral registered starting materials.

Chemocatalysis
Our chemical technology patents are concerned with the preparation of ligands and catalysts used in asymmetric hydrogenation. One example is a patent covering a very efficient manufacturing method for BINAP which produces a more stable, reproducible and less costly source of this valuable chiral ligand. We also own patents covering Knowles’ catalyst [Rh(DIPAMP)] and we use this technology to carry out asymmetric hydrogenations ourselves and have scaled a number to >100kg. This covers an extensive range of substituted phenylalanines.

Biocatalysis
Our biotechnology has also been most extensively applied to unnatural amino acids. We have patents in the area of transaminases (conversion of cheap keto acids to high value, unnatural, chiral amino acids), ammonia lyases (insertion of ammonia across the alkene of cinnamic acids to give the unnatural, chiral amino acid) and deracemases that offer kinetic resolutions. The most advanced example of our biotechnology is used in the commercial manufacture of L-tert-leucine.

Both technologies have been demonstrated on a number of substrates at scales from a few grams to tonnes. Through partnerships with academia and commercial arrangements with industrial partners, we have the skills, experience and access to resources to apply these technologies to new substrates.

Current active partnerships:
Bangor University - www.chemistry.bangor.ac.uk/akc/grants.php
Manchester University (CoeBio3) - www.coebio3.manchester.ac.uk
Ingenza - www.ingenza.com

Application of Novel Technologies
Excelsyn is also involved in the evaluation of a range of emerging technologies that hold promise for improving the efficiency or quality of chemical processes. In part, this is driven by our interesting innovation, the requirments of the FDA to look at Process Analytical Techniques (PAT) to better understand our processes and so ultimately lead to better Quality by Design and more efficient manufacture. We have evaluated a number of technologies in the area of crystallization, specifically targeting better control and reproducibility. Additionally, we have begun to evaluate a small number of technologies directed towards process intensification.
If you have a new technology that may be of benefit to Excelsyn and our customer base, please contact us. Similarly, if you have a process problem that you think would benefit from piloting through some of our evaluation set ups, please contact us.