Transplanted show opens amid industry challenges
The fine chemicals business is in a turbulent environment marked by overcapacity, Asian competition and the discovery of new molecular entities.
By Gordon Graff -- Purchasing, 1/15/2004 2:00:00 AM
Informex, the premier North American trade show for the custom and fine chemicals industry, changes its venue and date this year—it will take place in Las Vegas from Jan. 19 to 22, instead of its former location in New Orleans and late-February time slot. Otherwise the format will be similar to past years, with a full complement of company exhibits, lectures, roundtable workshops and poster sessions.
Organizers of the show, which is sponsored by the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), say they expect over 4,000 attendees and 450 exhibiting companies at this year's Informex session. The meeting's keynote address, by former FDA head David A. Kessler, will deal with the regulatory climate for new drug approvals. Educational workshops will include such topics as cGMP reporting for pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry suppliers, intellectual property licensing for the chemical industry, and new developments in homogeneous catalysis. Roundtable discussions will touch on emerging chemical markets in China, how small chemical companies can find niches in the marketplace, how to conduct internal audits, and high containment practices and equipment.
As Informex gets underway, the custom and fine chemicals business finds itself in a turbulent environment marked by overcapacity, competition from producers in Asia and the rising pace of discovery of new molecular entities. Recent actions by leading custom and fine chemicals suppliers suggest an awareness of the excess capacity problem. Great Lakes Chemical, for instance, is shutting down some of its facilities in Avondale, England. Clariant, which moved aggressively into life sciences a few years ago, has announced that it will now focus on its original strengths in dyes and pigments. DSM, meanwhile, says it will not do any chemical synthesis at a Greenville, N.C. site it bought from Catalytica. And Rutgers Organic is closing down its production site in State College, Pa.
The retrenchment by mainstream specialty and fine chemicals makers "are long-term trends that have to happen" in order to balance out supply and demand in the industry, observes Scott Martin, vice president for fine chemistry services and intermediates at Albemarle Corp. The cutbacks, he notes, usually involve existing products, or new ones that use existing technology, and often result from the shift of manufacturing from North America and Europe to Asia. At Rhodia Pharma Solutions, Nick Green, the president, says his firm has kept abreast of this trend by locating new facilities in Asia. Such moves are most likely to pay off, he adds, "when price is one of the driving factors."
One bright spot in the custom and fine chemicals sector is accelerating research efforts, which are yielding a flood of molecules that need to be synthesized and evaluated. "I think the pharmaceutical industry is improving its discovery rate," says Martin. "As a result," he adds, " they're going to continue to need small-scale capacity to develop as many products as possible." That will be good news to custom manufacturers and developers, he notes. The surging number of new chemical entities being discovered and entering preclinical testing "will give us opportunities to maintain our position as a leader in supply of development services," says Green.
An appreciation of the rising demand for specialized chemical products and services that could enable customers to target profitable niches is evident from the booth exhibits at Informex. Following is a sampler of what some of the participating companies will present:
Albemarle Corp.
The company will highlight its expanded manufacturing capabilities and broadened product portfolio stemming from its recent purchase of Atofina's bromine fine chemicals business. Albemarle says the deal, under which it will acquire Atofina's Port de Bouc, France, production site, will give it greater flexibility in raw material supply and will complement its existing network of bromine-based facilities in Jordan and the U.S. The bromine chemicals produced at these sites are used for pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical intermediates. The company will also announce the addition of a new cGMP (current good manufacturing practices) laboratory at its Baton Rouge, La., central R&D facility. The firm operates a cGMP lab in Dayton, Ohio, but has not previously had one at the Baton Rouge site. The new facility is intended to help centralize Albemarle's pharmaceutical research into one location.
Bayer Chemicals Corp.
The company will describe its progress over the past year in the development of a carbon-nitrogen bond forming technique, originally discovered by chemist Stephen Buchwald of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The project, carried out in collaboration with Rhodia Pharma Solutions, focuses on production of downstream pharmaceutical intermediates and is said to allow synthesis of active ingredients that would have been difficult to make in large quantities in the past. Also highlighted will be a group of fluorinating reagents that allow replacement of hydroxyl groups by fluorine under mild conditions. The reagents, tradenamed Fluorinox, are reported to be inexpensive and easy to handle. Structural derivatives of the reagents make it possible to prepare enantiomerically pure compounds. The reagents' reactivity can be enhanced by the addition of "promoters." The company will also present a new and more efficient route to chiral, nonracemic epoxy compounds derived from chalcones. The route involves improved synthesis of polyamino acid catalysts for the epoxidation reaction and the addition of co-catalysts. With this combination, says Bayer, there are significant reductions in reaction times, and reduced consumption of catalysts, bases and oxidants.
Dow Chemical Co.
Representatives of the Dowpharma business unit will discuss the capabilities of its recently completed commercial-scale cGMP oligonucleotide manufacturing facility. The unit, which can make multiple products, can produce approximately half a metric ton of materials annually. It is located in Midland, Mich., where Dowpharma operates a cGMP lab-scale facility to produce material for early toxicology and clinical trials (10-100 grams). Also in Midland is a mid-scale cGMP manufacturing unit, which can produce multi- kilogram quantities on a campaign basis for later-stage clinical trials. In progress at the new facility are Installation Qualifications (IQ) and Operational Qualifications (OQ). The first validation batches at the unit have been scheduled.
Degussa
The Exclusive Synthesis & Catalysts business unit will promote its capabilities, which include custom-tailored syntheses, APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) and catalysts, particularly for the pharmaceuticals market. The division has a global network of sites, including Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan and the U.S. Services run the gamut from lab-scale synthesis development to commercial-scale production. The unit offers homogeneous, heterogeneous and biocatalysts. Also featured will be the company's Building Blocks business unit, which offers ingredients and intermediates for such markets as adhesives and sealants, coatings and colorants, and cosmetic ingredients. Also available are intermediates for agricultural and pharmaceutical chemicals, polymer and plastics additives, and textile specialties.
Sigma-Aldrich Corp.
The firm, which manufactures more than 40,000 compounds at 30 facilities around the world, will showcase its ability to deliver custom chemicals in bulk quantities. To enhance these capabilities, the company recently upgraded several of its Wisconsin facilities to comply with ISO 9001 and 2000 quality system requirements. The upgrades include all manufacturing, quality control, and related activities at its Sheboygan location, the site of most of the firm's custom manufacturing of organic chemicals. It also includes many of the support and operational functions at its Milwaukee site. The company says it has 20 locations with quality systems that adhere to ISO 9000 requirements, and six cGMP manufacturing locations registered with the FDA. Recently installed at its Buchs, Switzerland location is a new cGMP kilo lab for the production of gram-to-kilogram quantities of APIs, and of key intermediates for preclinical to phase-II clinical trials.
Now Playing: 