STEP - Scalable Technology for the Extraction of Pharmaceuticals

The aim of the project is to drive substantial cost efficiency in both drug development and drug manufacturing processes by developing commercial counter current separation technology which will allow selective purifications to be achieved at a loading of approximately 1kg/day. In contrast to high-performance liquid chromatography, counter current separations do not require expensive packing materials; are more tolerant of particulate matter and have the benefit of excellent reproducibility. The project will demonstrate the broad applicability of the technology to pharmaceutical separation problems and specific examples will be more closely examined demonstrating separation capability at scale.