Flow chemistry has become the need of the hour for several chemical industries for a stronger alignment towards United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UNSDG) and to adopt greener & sustainable process.
FCT-Hub draws inspiration from similar models of industry-academia partnership existing in many Universities of the UK and European Union. The hub is built on a foundation of collaboration and works towards a common goal of developing / honing scientific capabilities for meeting specific needs of the industry ecosystem around. A multi-industry centric FCT-Hub at DRILS enables research collaborations, incubation-like partnerships and a close engagement with technology providers for fast-tracking lab-to-manufacturing phase of chemical process R&D.
The setting up of Centre of Excellence on Flow Chemistry Consortium Agreement was signed by Dr. Srinivas Oruganti, Director DRILS with GV Prasad (Co-Chairman and MD, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories), Dr. Satyanarayana Chava (CEO, Laurus Labs), Shakthi Nagappan (Director, Telangana Life Sciences and Pharma; CEO, Hyderabad Pharma City) in the presence of Industries and IT minister KT Rama Rao and Principal Secretary Jayesh Ranjan on 25th November 2021. The FCT hub was inaugurated by Shri Jayesh Ranjan (Principal secretary for IT) on May 04, 2022.
The Hub houses two 850 sq. ft. labs to provide hands-on training in various flow chemistry technologies.
The Hub is poised to work on twin objectives.
- Create strong research orientation & training to industry scientist to enable translation of batch process to flow process for the reasons of safety, efficiency and robustness.
- Provide a strong platform among laboratory, manufacturing setups, various cross functional teams and expertise through DRILS connections and knowledge partners for a “green ecosystem”.
The FCT Hub aims to help pharma SMEs to Brain-storm, Identify, Demonstrate, Develop [BIDD] sustainable processes which can translate into manufacturing with high levels of reproducibility.
The initiative is aimed towards ensuring greater incorporation of flow chemistry techniques during pharma research and development and greater adoption of continuous green synthesis for manufacturing of APIs of a drug development. The hub set up at DRILS will receive funding and patronage from Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories and Laurus Labs. The government of Telangana will facilitate strategic support and scale up for the hub and encourage more industries to join the consortium. Research activities at the CoE will benefit from the scientific mentorship and support from world renowned scientists like Prof. Govardhan Mehta (UoH), international advisors such as Prof. Steven Ley (University of Cambridge, UK), Prof. Oliver Kappe (University of Graz, Austria), Prof. Shu Kobayashi (University of Tokyo, Japan)