FLIP: Developing biorenewables based feedstock and clean chemistry technologies for the pharmaceutical industry

Plants have evolved to produce a vast array of complex chemical structures to fight off attacks from herbivores and pathogens and to protect themselves from often hostile environments. These chemical structures also provide plants with medicinal properties that human civilisation has relied on for millennia. We now know the identity of the chemicals responsible for a number of these medicinal properties. The pharmaceutical industry has used these chemical structures to develop drugs either directly from the plant derived chemicals or by chemically synthesising related structures that mimic the plant chemical. The use of plants as a sustainable source of high value chemicals for industry has been recognised by the UK government as a key area for growth in the next decade. This interchange programme will establish much closer interactions between GlaxoSmithKline, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in the UK, and the University of York, which has a critical mass of researchers in plant biochemistry, novel crop development, green chemistry and industrial biotechnology. Specific objectives include the identification of new plant derived feedstocks for high value chemicals, evaluation of technology platforms that use biocatalysis and fermentation based processes to modify chemical structures and lower input, more sustainable platforms for extraction and processing of chemicals from various plant feedstocks. The interchange also aims to train academic staff and students in the practices used by industry to select targets and projects for development and to increase awareness of how industry-academic partnerships can operate to mutual gain, allowing both the need of academia to publish and the need of industry to protect intellectual property to be met. Knowledge and technology will also move from academia to industry through the interchanger and also by direct engagement with key opinion formers from the company in an organised workshop, and follow up visits to industry by academics. Ultimate success of the interchange will be measured through the increased uptake of high value chemicals from plants by the pharmaceutical sector and overall contribution to the Government vision of the UK becoming a top 3 producer of high value chemicals from plants by 2025.

This interchange will enable a pharmaceutical industry expert in natural product chemistry to become engaged in a number of biorenewables based activities at the University of York. The interchange is designed to build bridges between the pharmaceutical industry and the research and technology base at the University of York across a number of BBSRC funded and other projects that should lead to better translation of research into the pharmaceutical sector and improved awareness and response to industry needs by academia.
More specifically, the interchanger will:
1) evaluate and utilise new bioinformatics, metabolomic and molecular breeding tools for natural product discovery and development (with the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products).
2) evaluate synthetic biology and fermentation based approaches for delivery of biorenewable based feedstocks to the pharmaceutical industry (with the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products).
3) evaluate and optimise extraction and processing of the alkaloid class of natural products using state of the art pilot scale facilities (in the Biorenewables Development Centre).
4) explore and develop clean chemical technologies and their potential to decrease the environmental footprint of pharmaceutical production (with the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence).
5) develop activities that will ensure productive interactions, raise awareness of industry requirements within academia and the potential for biorenewables based feedstocks and clean chemical technologies within the pharmaceutical industry.

Who will benefit from this research?
This interchange will benefit individual staff and research students in the University of York who are focussed on biorenewables based activities and industrial biotechnology.
The interchange will also benefit the pharmaceutical industry in general and GSK in particular.
The interchange will also benefit the development of the industrial biotechnology sector and consequently growth and development of the UK economy.
The interchange will also benefit the environment and society through the development of more environmentally friendly production systems for pharmaceuticals.

How will they benefit from this research?
Staff and students in the academic sector will benefit through exposure to the operating practices within industry that lead to targets and projects being selected for development. This will lead to an improved understanding of how to approach and work with industry or to compete for positions in industry. The interchange also aims through a workshop to increase awareness of the structure of industry academia partnerships and how these can best function while meeting the requirements of both academia and industry.

The interchanger, Tim Bowser, will benefit in terms of training through access to new technology and knowledge related to natural product feedstocks, extraction and processing and the opportunity to perform novel research that could lead to step change increases when scaled up by industry. Where appropriate, the outputs from the research will be evaluated at scale and translated directly by GSK to the benefit of the company and the host institution. GSK management will also benefit through increased awareness of the potential of plant derived natural products and more sustainable extraction and processing technologies. This is a key aim of objective 5, which is focussed on knowledge exchange between the sectors.

The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has identified Industrial Biotechnology as having significant growth potential for the benefit of the UK economy over the next 15 years. In the BIS roadmap for Industrial Biotechnology the need to develop centres of excellence to support specific aims such as using plant biomass as a source of high value chemicals for the pharmaceutical sector has been identified. This interchange programme contributes significantly to these aims by providing a mechanism to establish industry led programmes in such a centre. The success of this interchange will therefore facilitate the development of industrial biotechnology to the benefit of the UK economy and the economic competitiveness of the UK in this important growth area.

More sustainable and environmentally friendly production of pharmaceuticals will have an obvious benefit to our environment and will also make the industry itself more competitive and sustainable.