Global service provider Almac has signed a collaboration agreement with DSM Pharmaceutical Products, the custom manufacturing and technology business of Royal DSM, in the field of biocatalysis to provide sustainable manufacturing services to the pharmaceutical industry.

The agreement grants both parties access to their enzyme platform technologies, services and expertise for the manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Almac’s expertise in rapid enzyme identification, scale-up and implementation into early phase projects complements DSM’s experience and track record of over 30 commercial manufacturing bioprocesses run on a multi-ton scale. This will give customers of either party access to enzyme expertise and assets resulting in cost-effective, green processing at all phases of development from preclinical to commercial manufacturing scale.  This collaboration will also enable Almac to offer its customers a preferred partner for large-scale production.

“This collaboration has come at the right time as more and more customers need scalable green technologies to access difficult-to-make chiral chemicals,” said Tom Moody, head of biocatalysis, Almac. "Having access to the right enzymes today will drive ‘hit to process.’ The introduction of enzymes into processes earlier in the drug discovery pipeline will therefore help to drive cost down as the projects move forward.”

"One important success factor for implementing enzymatic routes is access to a diverse range of biocatalysts,” said Daniel Mink, corporate scientist biocatalysis and (bio)-organic chemistry, DSM. “DSM is continuously expanding its unique enzyme collection of more than 3,000 enzymes through in-house development as well as innovative partnering models. The collaboration with Almac completes the latest phase in this process. Together we will be able to offer a complete package serving the pharmaceutical industry at all stages of development from preclinical to commercial scale—bringing biocatalysis to the next level.”