BUSINESS als. Then they could make larger quantities for Phase III trials and beyond by simply hooking up additional cells to run in parallel, without the muss and fuss required in traditional scale-up of test-tube chemistry Rapid chemistry optimization and reaction engineering can save up to two years in the development of a new drug, Schwalbe contends. Schwalbe and his partners took the concept of a living cell as their model: The ously Instead of using large blades to mix Cytos trade name comes from the Greek batch contents, microreactors accomplish word for cell. mixing by simple diffusion, one molecule at Experimental microreactor a time. Instead of mammoth ensystems have been around as far ergy-consuming heat exchangers, back as the 1970s, Schwalbe exmicroreactors use tiny low-powplains, when researchers began er heat-exchange plates. to design specialized units for CPC was "started by chemists specific uses. But Schwalbe and to design flexible systems to raphis partners started CPC to deidly make gram to kilogram quansign a flexible microreactor that tities and then allow fast scale-up," could be used for multiple fluid Schwalbe says. The 42-year-old reactions. Schwalbe, an organic chemist From three people in Mainz, with a Ph.D. from Frankfurt UniVENTURE Germany, where CPC still manversity started the firm in 1999 CAPITAL ufactures its microreactors, emwith two other partners. All three ployment has grown to 22 people. The firm were associated with the German research has offices inTokyo and Cambridge, Mass., and consulting firm Institut fur Mikrotechand plans to open an office in the U.K. To nik Mainz. spearhead the firm's effort to sell to and The trio determined that, if they could service U.S. customers, Schwalbe has provide the equipment, a market existed for moved to Massachusetts. microreactors to serve contract manufacGetting this far hasn't been easy CPC turers of active pharmaceutical ingredients. started up just as the dot-com bubble burst, Schwalbe and his partners reasoned that so investment capital was not easy to come microreactors could allow contract manby The firm's first group of venture capiufacturers to rapidly produce small quantalists got cold feet, and Schwalbe and his tities of drugs for Phase I and II clinical trio partners had to scramble for new x backers.
MICROREACTORS FOR THE CHEMICAL MASSES
From gram-scale to multiton output, start-up firm CPC sees $100 million market for tiny device
T
HOMAS j . SCHWALBE, CHIEF Ex-
ecutive officer of microreactor systems maker Cellular Process Chemistry (CPC), isn't alone in believing microreactors have considerable commercial potential. In September, Bayer bought a competitor, the microreactor module maker Ehrfeld Mikrotechnik. In August, Clariant's pharmaceutical unit started an all-out push to develop the modular gram-scale devices by establishing a competence center for microreaction technology Clariant had already successfully explored commercial production of azo pigments using CPC's Cytos microreactor. Earlier this year, Sigma-Aldrich began to evaluate CPC's microreactor system at its R&D facility in Buchs, Switzerland. Other chemical companies, such as Degussa, are considering commercial use of the technology, and many of the major drugmakers are eyeing it, too. Because hisfive-year-oldcompany is privately held, Schwalbe won't reveal sales data. But he volunteers that his estimate of the size of the microreactor market is "in the mid- to low-double-digit millions of dollars." And he reckons that the market for these Lilliputian devices could grow to $100 million in the next two years. Though they are very small, microreactors would seem to have large potential because they can be quickly scaled up from gram to multiton output. Compared with even the smallest batch-processing units, a microreactor is tiny The Cytos reactor is about the size of a dollar bill. It contains a number of stacked metal microreactor platelets, each with numerous submillimeter parallel channels. Platelets divide reactants into substreams, lead them into reaction channels, and then collect products and lead them out of the microreactor. Unlike batch-reaction vessels, a modular microreactor system, which costs between $70,000 and MINILAB The Cytos Lab System is capable of milligram $200,000, does the job continu- to multiton production. 14
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£ Venture capitalists are not | known for their patience and g typically seek a three- to five-year 2 payback on their investment. g The German venture-capital % funds that back CPC have giv3 en it some breathing space for o now. "It is difficult for start-up technical companies to survive," Schwalbe laments. But CPC is "near profitability" this year, he says. As a result, the firm is much more attractive to potential new investors. CPC is thinking small to get big results. And as interest from pharmaceutical and specialty ingredient makers grows, Schwalbe expects the company to be in the vanguard by offering small- to large-scale continuous-processing systems with none of the unpredictability ofbatch scale-up.— MARC REISCH HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
