Category Archives: Chemistry

THE HAGUE, Netherlands27September 2022The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical (OPCW), in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), organised an analytical chemistry course held in Hyderabad, India from 5 to 16 September 2022.

The course enhanced the chemical analysis skills of chemistry professionals from OPCW Member States with economies that are developing or in transition. Experts delivered comprehensive briefings on the provisions and implementation of the Chemical Weapons (CWC). During the two-week training, participants gained theoretical skills and practiced techniques to analyse chemicals that are subject to the CWC. In particular, the chemistry professionals received advanced insights on analytical techniques such as gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and derivatisation. The training also covered methods for sample preparation.

The Chairperson of the Indian National Authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention, Ms Neel Kamal Darbari underlined in her opening remarks that: The skill enhancement on the analysis of CWC-related chemicals to analytical chemists from Member States is highly essential for the better implementation of CWC at national level and helps in extending scientific collaborations for the peaceful use of chemistry across the world.

The course was attended by 20 participants from 16 OPCW Member States: Algeria, Brazil, Chile, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Suriname, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

OPCW analytical development courses assist chemists to acquire practical experience in the analysis of chemicals subject to the CWC. The objectives of these courses are to: equip specialists with the skills to analyse chemicals subject to the CWC; enhance the capacities of industry, academia, and laboratories to implement the CWC at a national level; disseminate best practices in chemical analysis; and broaden the global pool of qualified chemistry professionals.

Article XI of the CWC, Economic and Technological Development, provides international cooperation for the economic and technological development of States Parties.

As the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention, the OPCW, with its 193 Member States, oversees the global endeavour to permanently eliminate chemical weapons. Since the Conventions entry into force in 1997, it is the most successful disarmament treaty eliminating an entire class of weapons of mass destruction.

Over 99% of all declared chemical weapon stockpiles have been destroyed under OPCW verification. For its extensive efforts in eliminating chemical weapons, the OPCW received the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

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OPCW and Indian Institute of Chemical Technology enhance analytical skills of chemists from developing countries | OPCW - Organisation for the...

Farmington Hills Mercy sophomore Jillian Collins attempts to block a shot from Bloomfield Hills Marian senior Ella Schomer.

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FARMINGTON HILLS A mix of senior leadership, chemistry and pure talent is a dynamic trio that continues to be a recipe for success for one Farmington Hills volleyball team.

Recognized for their 2019 Michigan High School Athletic Association Division One State Championship and decade-long success rate, Farmington Hills Mercy (21-5) continues to be a force to be reckoned with in the Division One.

Currently ranked No. 3 in Division One according to the Michigan Interscholastic Volleyball Coaches Association, Mercys 20-2 record this season showcases a team prepared to make a run in the playoffs.

I think we just have that kind of program, Mercy coach Loretta Vogel said. Every year, we teach the skills from the time theyre freshmen, so its just the skills they continue to build on themselves.

Led by seniors Ella Shields (outside hitter), Erin Kline (setter), Lauren Mullan (middle hitter), and Julia Pallozzi (defensive setter), Mercys senior leadership has been a key part in its success this year. Shields was an all-State honorable mention honoree last season.

For all us seniors this year, we really got everyone closer this year, and it really helps us on and off the court, Kline said.

Along with the four seniors are two upperclassmen leaders in junior outside hitter Angie Butler and junior outside/middle hitter Lana LaFontaine.

Mercys highest numbers this season come from its sophomore class, led by star setter and third team all-State honoree Campbell Flynn. Juniors Jillian Collins (outside hitter), Kaitlyn Pallozzi (outside/middle hitter), Keira McNutt (defensive setter) and Ava Fitzgerald (outside hitter) have made significant contributions this year for Mercy.

While a mixed bag in age, the team chemistry remains Mercys biggest strength.

I think last year, there were a lot of new people on the team, and this year, I feel were a lot closer and we play well together and work together, Shields said. I think were more of a team this year than last year.

The chemistry and continuity has been at an all-time high this year, and Vogel said its everywhere, from the players to the coaching staff.

Many of us have been at Mercy for years together, Vogel said. That continuity is helpful, without a doubt.

Mercys coaching staff consists of Mallory Kopa, Angela Kalczynski and Andrew Thompson.

Mercys chemistry has paid off on the offensive and defensive ends, but the offensive unit has been especially dominant this season.

Were very tall, and I think we run the offense really well, Campbell said. If its a 6-2 or 5-1, I think we distribute the ball really well.

While Mercy continues its successful season, it will undoubtedly have to deal with Bloomfield Hills Marian in its run for a state title. Marian, who has won back-to-back Division One state championships, has bested Mercy in each of their last two playoff meetings.

Marian got the better of Mercy this season in a three-set sweep on Sept. 28, but it will be a different atmosphere and a different Mercy team, come playoff time.

Mercy has done it before when they beat Marian on their way to a state championship title in 2019, and theyre ready to do it once more.

Its been a rivalry for so many years, Shields said. Its like, Oh, its Marian. Its always a huge game.

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Mercy volleyball built on chemistry and continuity - C&G Newspapers

St. James Parish, located on a stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans dubbed Cancer Alley due to the high concentration of petrochemical plants, is home to the countrys largest producer of polystyrene the foam commonly found in soft drink and takeout containers.

Now, the owner of that plant wants to build a new facility in the same area that would break down used foam cups and containers into raw materials that can be turned into other kinds of plastic. While theres limited data on what kinds of emissions this type of facility creates, environmental advocates are concerned that the new plant could represent a new source of carcinogens like dioxin and benzene in the already polluted area.

The proposed plant comes as the U.S. federal and state governments and private companies pour billions into chemical recycling research, which is touted as a potential solution to anemic plastics recycling rates. Proponents say that, despite mounting restrictions on single-use packaging, plastics arent going away anytime soon, and that chemical recycling is needed to keep growing amounts of plastic waste out of landfills and oceans.

But questions abound about whether the plants are economically viable and how chemical recycling contributes to local air pollution, perpetuating a history of environmental injustices and climate change.

Skeptics argue that chemical recycling is an unproven technology that amounts to little more than the latest PR effort from the plastics industry. The Environmental Protection Agency is deciding whether or not to continue regulating the plants as incinerators, with some lawmakers expressing concerns last month about toxic emissions from these facilities.

Theyre going to be managing toxic chemicalsand theyre going to be putting our communities at risk for either air pollution or something worse, Jane Patton, a Baton Rouge native and manager of the Center for International Environmental Laws plastics and petrochemicals campaign, told EHN of the proposed new plant in Louisiana.

The air of St. James Parish, where the new plant will be located, has among the highest pollution levels along the Mississippi River corridor dubbed Cancer Alley. A joint investigation in 2019 by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and The Advocate found that most of the new petrochemical facilities in the parish including the recycling plant will be located near the mostly Black 5th District.

In the U.S., less than 10% of plastics are actually recycled. Credit: Hans from Pixabay

When most of us picture recycling, we picture what industry insiders call mechanical recycling: plastics are sorted, cleaned, crushed or shredded and then melted to be made into new goods.

In the U.S., though, less than 10% of plastics are actually recycled due to challenges ranging from contamination to variability in plastic types and coloring. No flexible plastic packaging can be recycled with mechanical recycling the only real plastic that can be recycled are number one and number two water bottles and milk jugs, George Huber, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin and head of the multi-university research center for Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics, told EHN.

Enter chemical recycling processes that use high heat, chemicals, or both to break used plastic goods down into their chemical building blocks to, in theory, make more plastics. Proponents say that chemical recycling can complement more traditional recycling by handling mixed and harder-to-recycle plastics.

An advantage of advanced recycling is that it can take more of the 90% of plastics that arent recycled today, including the hard-to-recycle films, pouches and other mixed plastics, and remake them into virgin-quality new plastics approved for medical and food contact applications, Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division at the American Chemistry Council, told EHN.

The technology has actually been around for decades, with an initial wave of plants built in the 1990s, but it didnt take off then because of operational and economic challenges. Huber said some factors have changed, like a significant increase in plastic use and Chinas refusal to accept other countries waste, that make chemical recycling more viable this time around.

Yet a 2021 Reuters investigation found that commercial viability remains a major challenge for chemical recyclers due to difficulties like contamination of the incoming plastic, high energy costs, and the need to further clean the outputs before they can become plastic.

It's one thing in theory to design something on paper it's a whole huge challenge to build a plant, get it operational, get the permits and for it to perform like you think it would, Huber said.

Tracking down just how many chemical recycling plants operate today in the U.S. is tricky and depends in part on what one counts as recycling.

Most of the plants in the U.S. are pyrolysis facilities, which use huge amounts of energy to heat plastics up enough to break their chemical bonds, raising concerns about their climate impacts if that energy comes from burning fossil fuels. An analysis from Closed Loop Partners found that, depending on the technology, carbon emissions from chemical recycling ranged from 22% higher to 45% lower than virgin plastics production.

It's a very promising technology to tackle the problem of (plastic) waste, but if you don't concurrently tackle the challenge of where the energy is coming from, there's a problem, Rebecca Furlong, a chemistry PhD candidate at the University of Bath who has conducted life cycle assessments of plastics recycling technologies, told EHN.

A life cycle assessment study prepared for a British chemical recycling company found that chemical recycling has a significantly lower climate impact than waste-to-energy incineration but produced almost four times as many greenhouse gas emissions as landfilling the plastic.

The American Chemistry Council, or ACC, says that there are at least seven plants in the U.S. doing plastics-to-plastics recycling, although many of those facilities also turn plastics into industrial fuel. For example, according to records reviewed by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, or GAIA, in 2018 a facility located in Oregon and owned by one of the companies planning to build the Louisiana plant, converted 216.82 pounds of polystyrene into the plastics building block styrene, sending roughly the same amount to be burned at a cement kiln.

The ACC, European Union regulators and Furlong and her advisor, Matthew Davidson, say plastics to fuel shouldnt count as recycling. Clearly digging oil out of the ground, using it as a plastic, and then burning it is not hugely different from digging it out of the ground and burning it, Davidson, director of the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath, told EHN.

Depending on the type of plastic waste the facilities are processing, the plants can generate hazardous compounds.

Depending on the type of plastic waste the facilities are processing, the plants can generate hazardous compounds. Credit: Frauke Feind from Pixabay

Chemical recycling saw a boost under the Trump administration, including a formal partnership between the federal Department of Energy and the American Chemistry Council, which lobbies on behalf of the plastics industry, to scale up chemical recycling technologies.

Theres limited information, however, on the environmental health impacts of chemical recycling plants. Furlong said she had not included hazardous waste generation in her life cycle assessments because of a lack of data. Tangri said there have been few studies outside the lab, in part because there are relatively few chemical recycling plants out there. Additionally, the ones that do exist are either too small to meet the EPAs pollution reporting threshold, or are housed within a larger petrochemical complex and so dont separately report out their air pollution emissions.

Earlier this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council released a report looking at eight facilities in the U.S. The environmental group found that one facility in Oregon sent around half a million pounds of hazardous waste, including benzene and lead, to incinerators in Washington, Colorado, Missouri and three other states. Hazardous waste incinerators can release toxic air pollution to nearby communities. Additionally, some hazardous waste incinerators in the U.S. have repeatedly violated air pollution standards and the EPA has recently raised serious concerns about a backlog of hazardous waste piling up due to limited incineration capacity.

The Oregon facility, which is supposed to break down polystyrene into styrene, also sent more than 100,000 pounds of styrene in 2020 to be burned in waste to energy plants rather than recycled back into new plastics, according to the Natural Resources Defense Councils report.

Plastics contain a range of additives, like phthalates and bisphenols, that have serious health concerns. The European Chemicals Agency expressed concerns in a 2021 report about the extent to which chemical recycling could eliminate these chemicals, especially legacy additives like lead-stabilized PVC that the EU no longer allows, and prevent them from showing up in new plastic products.

The agency also cautioned that, depending on the type of plastic waste the facilities are processing, pyrolysis and gasification plants can generate hazardous compounds such as dioxins, volatile organic compounds and PCBs. Dioxins are considered highly toxic by the EPA as they can cause cancer, reproductive issues, immune system damage and other health issues. Volatile organic compounds can cause breathing difficulties and harm the nervous system; and some, like benzene, are also carcinogens. The agency noted that companies are required to take measures, like installing flue gas cleaning systems and pre-treatment of wastewater, to limit emissions.

Additionally, experts interviewed by the EU highlighted an overall lack of transparency about the kinds of chemicals used in some of the chemical recycling processes.

The American Chemistry Council, or ACC, says that emissions from most chemical recycling plants are too low to trigger Clean Air Act permits, citing a recent report from consultant Good Company and sponsored by the ACC that found that emissions from four plants in the U.S. were on par with those from a hospital and food manufacturing plant.

The trade group claims the plants are designed to avoid dioxin formation with many interventions, the primary one being that the plastic material is heated in a closed, oxygen-deprived environment that is not combustion, and that the facilities would be subject to violations or operating restrictions if dioxins were formed.

As the EPA decides what to do about chemical recycling plants, 20 states including Louisiana, where the new plant could be built have already passed laws that would regulate the facilities as manufacturers rather than solid waste facilities, according to the American Chemistry Council a move that environmental advocates say could lead to less oversight and more pollution. Whenever I see a big push for exemptions from environmental statutes, I get a little concerned, Judith Enck, director of the anti-plastics advocacy group Beyond Plastics, told EHN.

Advocates in Louisiana fear the new law will exempt the new facility from being regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality, something the ACC says wont happen. However, it is unclear in the text of the law which state agency will oversee its environmental impacts (the state Department of Environmental Quality didnt respond to our question).

In a recent letter to the EPA, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and more than 30 other lawmakers requested that the agency continue to regulate pyrolysis and gasification plants as incinerators. Additionally, they also urged the EPA to request more information from these facilities on their air pollution and climate impacts.

Communities located near these facilities need to know what chemicals they are being exposed to, and they need the full protection that Congress intended the Clean Air Acts incinerator standards to provide, wrote the lawmakers.

The American Chemistry Council contends that chemical recycling plants take in plastics waste that is already sorted, and that regulating these facilities as solid waste facilities, with measures like odor and rodent controls, does not make sense. The ACC adds that, like other manufacturing facilities, chemical recycling plants would still be subject to air and water pollution and hazardous waste regulations.

Tangri, from GAIA, said that the U.S. should also follow in the footsteps of the EU and not count plastics to fuel as chemical recycling.

Overall, environmental advocates would prefer to see stronger measures taken to reduce plastic use and require that manufacturers take more responsibility for plastic packaging a concept known as extended producer responsibility. Enck suggested that there be mandatory environmental standards for packaging similar to auto efficiency standards. We really need to move to a refillable, reusable economy, she said. Do we need all these layers of packaging on a product? Do we need multi-material packaging?

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Chemical recycling and its environmental impacts - Environmental Health News

Just for show! Dancing With the Stars contestants are often asked whether their onstage chemistry indicates an offscreen romantic connection.

I gotta know are those your acting skills or was that real? cohost Alfonso Ribeiro asked Trevor Donovan and Emma Slater after their Rumba to Elvis Presleys Always On My Mind during a September 2022 episode.

If youre really doing a good job acting, it all comes from the truth so theres something real in every performance, Donovan replied. Slater, for her part, was silent.

During that nights post-show interview, the U.K. native told Us Weekly she was so glad the 90210 alum had answered Ribeiros question for them.

I couldnt believe it. I was like, That question! Like, wow, just out the blue, Slater said. We really do get on and have great chemistry, which made this dance so much easier. But then when Alfonso asked that question, I was so glad you answered because I was like, I cant.

The Hallmark Channel star, for his part, explained that his acting experience prepared him for having a strong connection with his dance partner.

A lot of the movies I do, its [the] romantic lead and you have at least a couple scenes that are intimate scenes. And youre with someone who [could] very well be married or that you just met or youre not in a relationship and so you have to create that and luckily, weve had a few weeks of getting to know each other to become friends and break down that wall and be comfortable with it. I just answered as truthfully as I could, and it is the truth, he said.

In August 2022, Us confirmed that Slater had split from her husband and fellow DWTS pro, Sasha Farber. Theyve been apart for many months now, a source said at the time. They both have not been wearing their wedding rings and are each leading a single life.

The insider noted that although the duo had not filed for divorce, they were figuring out what their lives looked like without each other.

Its been a difficult time since they really care about each other and have been together for so long, the source said. Slater and Farber exchanged vows in 2018 after dating on and off since 2011.

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Every Time Dancing With The Stars Partners Have Defended Their Chemistry and Denied Dating Rumors - Us Weekly

Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst's message to frustrated fans

Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst's message to frustrated Badger fans

Mark Stewart, Wochit

MADISON The constant is change.

That has been the story for Wisconsins offensive line this season. Due to injuries, illness and the growing pains of building the unit, coach Bob Bostad has not employed the same five players from one week to the next through the first four weeks of the season.

Are we getting closer to what the final product might look like?

With left tackle Jack Nelson set to return after an illness sidelined him for the Ohio State game, the Badger coacheswill get an extensive look at their retooled line when they play host to Illinois at 11 a.m. Saturday.

While it would have been nice see how the group fared last week against the third-ranked team in the nation, this game with Illinois is more important in the scheme of the season. The path for the Badgers to regainprominence in the Big Ten starts with taking care of business in the West Division.

I think theyre battling. I think weve got some good pieces up there. But those guys five have to play as one, UW offensive coordinator Bobby Engram said. I think Bo is doing a great job of having guys ready to go play, sub in and rotate when needed.

Eight linemen have started in the first four games for the Badgers. Three of those players made their first career start this season. Combine that inexperience with steady changes in the lineup and the unit is one of many for UW that has a high ceiling for growth during the final two months of the season.

More: An approach that has served us well: Wisconsin AD Chris McIntosh will be patient with Paul Chryst through these tough times

More: Wisconsin receiver Skyler Bell driven by missed opportunities at Ohio State as he and the Badgers prep for an 'aggressive' Illinois defense

More: 'I just hope you guys are there to see it': Linebacker Nick Herbig hints UW will be ready for Illinois after an ugly loss last week

Saturday's projected starting lineup of center Joe Tippmann, Nelson, left guard Tyler Beach, right guard Tanor Bortolini and right tackle Trey Wedig will be Wisconsins fourth in five games. When you consider the mid-game change against New Mexico State that saw Michael Furtney make way for Bortonlini and Logan Brown make way for Wedig, the unit has basically been different every week.

The switch to Bortonlini, who missed a significant portion of camp due to a knee injury, and Wedig, who worked at center and right guard before returning to right tackle, the position he played in high school, provided an immediate boost to the offense two weeks ago. Last week, under the spotlight of a nationally televised game on the road, the two were solid despite the lopsided final score.

I thought there were some good points in it, Wisconsin coach Paul Chryst said. Im not trying to sound like a broken record, but there are some areas that weve got to be better on this, but I thought they both handled the situation. … I thought they handled the noise, handled going against the players. Were in the Big Ten now, conference play and youre going to see really good players."

Junior Logan Brown filled in for Nelson last week but Chryst confirmed Thursday that Nelson, a redshirt sophomore from Stoughton, will be back on the field Saturday,

Hell anchor a line facing an Illinois defense that has allowed a touchdown or less in three games.

Nellie is a guy that certainly brings an energy to us, Chyrst said. We feel like he is a talented player. There is a reason he was a starter for us. Hopefully the week continues to go in a positive trend. … He s a guy we all trust.

Wisconsin ranks 10th in the Big Ten in total offense with the only times it moved the ball consistently coming against Illinois State, an FCS team,and New Mexico State, which is 1-4.

With right tackle Riley Mahlman, the Game 1 starter, out indefinitely due to a right leg injury, what we see Saturday could be the Badgers' No. 1 unit for the foreseeable future. After being sidelined for a month, Bortonlini, who started five games last year, is getting better each week. Wedig, meanwhile, said he feel growing confidence after playing extensively the past two games.

The value of allowing a group to jell isn't lost on Chryst.

You are in as close a space and there arent many things a lineman doesnt do that doesnt entail another individual, he explained. If its a run play, typically there are one or more combination blocks, and if you look at pass protection there arent many times where youre just getting flat-out straight rush up the field and youre just blocking your guy.

Ask the Badgers about the effects ofthe constant changes to the line and theyll downplay them. Beach, the Port Washington native, and Bortolini, said there are enough other times during camp and practice when different combinations are used that lineup changes arent a big deal. Wedig echoed those thoughts, saying that if you gave him a week of preparation hed feel comfortable playing next to anyone.

They're focused on getting the season back on track against Illinois.

New opponent. New stuff. New defense, Beach said. I think the biggest thing is bringing over the corrections from last week and any confidence we gained as a group, carry that over to next week.

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'Five have to play as one': Wisconsin works to build continuity, chemistry on offensive line - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

We essentially created from nothing a product ready to go into clinical testing, says Daniel Fitzgerald, chief executive of UK-based Halo Therapeutics about his companys pan-coronavirus antivirals.

The biotech launched at a challenging time in the middle of the pandemic. We had an [active pharmaceutical ingredient, API] to begin with, explains Fitzgerald. What we needed to do was formulation, chemistry, device and preparing for a clinical trial application. Instead of starting the costly and lengthy process of finding a lab space, buying in the right equipment and assembling in-house teams, we developed a drugdevice combination product entirely using [contract research organisations, CROs], up to a clinical trial application.

[Contract development and manufacturing organisations] are, in my opinion, the pharma industrys special forces unit: a highly specialised team that functions behind the scenes, doing difficult tasks in high pressure situations, says Peter DeYoung, chief executive of one such CDMO, Piramal Global Pharma, headquartered in India.

A few decades ago, drug development was often done directly by pharma companies that commanded in-house teams of thousands of scientists. Towards the mid-1990s, there was really a change, says Mark Chadwick, chief commercial officer of CRO Charnwood Molecular whose newest site in Loughborough, UK, used to be an AstraZeneca research facility employing 2000 people. Top 10 pharma companies often had many divisions of molecular biology internally, and in the last 20 years, those divisions disappeared, adds Fitzgerald. This was entirely outsourced, mostly to Asia, just because of price.

For pharma based in Europe and the US looking for low cost and high expertise, CDMOs in China have long been a major source of drug precursors, while companies in India have broadly focused on finished drug products and biologics. But salaries in some of the major hubs in Asia have gone up a lot and so has the cost of goods sold, so theres some reversal, Fitzgerald explains.

The advantage of CROs and CDMOs is that you can look globally for the precise competencies that you need.

The effects of the Covid pandemic came into play here too, says DeYoung. The markets embrace of onshoring is real and we have responded, recognising that the definition of which shore varies and depends on the vantage point of our customer and their needs.

Minzhang Chen, co-chief executive of China-headquartered WuXi AppTec, explains that its subsidiary, WuXi STA, is steadily increasing its global footprint across the US, Europe and Asia. It added a new drug product manufacturing facility in Switzerland in 2021. Another site, focusing on formulation development and manufacturing for oral solid and injectable drugs, is under construction in the US.

Piramal also acquired a US site specifically to address the needs for US-based drug products, DeYoung explains. Weve taken major steps in the area of supply chain security by becoming less reliant on China and rethinking the raw material pipeline.

I think pharma companies have turned the corner in terms of their appetite to outsource development, says Eduard Viladesau, partner and associate director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), who is the firms topic lead in contract manufacturing and external supply in the pharmaceutical industry. The scale and scope of outsourcing has changed markedly, agrees Chadwick. At the start of my career [in the early 2000s], I worked for a company called BioFocus (now Charles River) and drug discovery outsourcing was in its infancy. Now it is a global industry.

Instead of one-off project transactions, there has been a move to long-term strategic partnerships between the contractors and their clients. Particularly in the biotech sector, CDMOs are often seamlessly integrated with any in-house development and manufacturing departments. Many small and virtual pharma companies, those that consist of only few employees and few, if any, facilities, could not exist without CDMOs.

There is a traditional division between contract research and contract manufacturing organisations, CROs and CMOs, respectively. The former support pharmaceutical companies in their drug discovery and clinical research efforts, while the latter offer activities focused on manufacturing both of active pharmaceutical ingredients and entire drug products, sometimes even including packaging.

But over the last five to eight years, there has been a rise of organisations that aim to be one-stop shops for anything from early-stage research to manufacturing. Whereas eight years ago the true CDMO was a myth, I think thats not true anymore, says Viladesau. The integration between development and manufacturing is valuable even to big pharma companies, because it really greatly reduces the tech transfer and scale up risk.

The pandemic marked a turning point for the relationship between CDMOs and pharma companies, Viladesau and colleagues wrote in a BCG article. Pre-2020, pharma companies usually outsourced services on a project-by-project basis. Long-term partnerships were rare; around 80% lasted no longer than a few years. During the pandemic, CDMOs suddenly became a huge source of additional research and manufacturing capacity though it remains unclear whether this will translate to more strategic collaborations in the long run.

The relationship has become more integrated and broader, with increasing use of [contract research, development and manufacturing organisation, CRDMO] companies from the early phases through to the complete life cycle, agrees Chen, who defines WuXi STA as one such CRDMO. Partnerships have shifted from transactional to strategic. [This] requires that CRDMOs have development technologies, manufacturing capacities and proven quality systems, as well as the experience and expertise.

For biotechs, especially virtual and emerging companies, its much the same, albeit deeper, adds DeYoung. Some of those clients do not have any in-house technical infrastructure and capabilities, and definitely dont have a deep bench of talent to rely on for specific technical needs. While big pharma companies often work with a different contractor for each step of the drug life cycle, smaller firms may prefer to partner with a CRDMO that offers a wider array of research and manufacturing services, says Viladesau. This lowers the burden of having to manage a complex set of partners for each individual step.

Speed and competency are the two major components when it comes to making decisions around outsourcing, Fitzgerald explains. The advantage of CROs and CDMOs is that you can look globally for the precise competencies that you need. Its difficult to build this especially if youre a small company in one location.

The outsourcing market for biological products sugars, proteins, nucleic acids or even whole cells and tissues is growing at 1015% per year, compared with 67% growth in small-molecule drug compounds. While new chemical entities remain the largest segment of the CDMO market, DeYoung says, Biologics have been riding a wave over the last few decades and are certainly part of the change the market has experienced.

The fastest growth, however, is happening in entirely new classes of treatment: RNA therapeutics, protein degraders, cyclopeptides, antibody drug conjugates and gene therapy. They are very highly outsourced, because normally theyre very small, so for every individual pharma player it rarely makes sense to invest in building a whole plant, says Viladesau.

I cant see us going back to a situation where a pharma company employs thousands of scientists I think that world has gone.

These new modalities require a completely different set of equipment and expertise than traditional drug molecules or even biologics. Moreover, the new modalities market encompasses so many different technologies, it would be nearly impossible for a single company to develop expertise in all of them and bear all the financial risk for drugs failing. But with the help of specialist CDMOs, firms can dip in and out of different therapeutic fields. Its difficult to see a trend yet, given its already heavily outsourced, Viladesau points out.

Despite this propensity for outsourcing, when one of these new products turns out to be a clear winner, originator companies will probably eventually invest in in-house manufacturing, Viladesau suggests. Because even for all the talk about CMOs being capable, there is still a preference by pharma companies to own the manufacturing capability.

Multiple, interconnected factors continue to drive growth in outsourcing services. Chadwick points to pharma firms efforts to maximise value for shareholders; Fitzgerald highlights aspects of cost and technological advancements. DeYoung notes that large firms want to reduce their assets and costs, while emerging companies want to hit milestones as quickly and efficiently as possible, even if it means failure. The average number of drug approvals by the US Food and Drug Administration almost doubled between 2011 and 2021 compared with the previous decade, and that increase is associated with more demand for outsourcing and more opportunities for deeper integration into the pharmaceutical ecosystem.

Drugs featuring complex molecules and substances require investment in new technologies, says Chen a decision that may be more easily made by a specialist CRDMO than a pharma company. WuXi STA has recently added an injectable platform for small molecules and new modalities. Piramal has added capabilities in peptide APIs and biologics. CRDMO companies will continue to evolve in the next few years, investing in cutting edge science and technologies to enable innovation, such as targeted protein degradation and photoredox chemistry, Chen says.

More generally, the pharmaceutical industry has understood that specialist companies can often be more productive than internal resources in the R&D process, says Chadwick. Specialist CROs often see many projects across a number of targets and therapeutic areas, whereas employees working in a small or large pharmaceutical company may focus on a particular area. He suggests the CDMO market will continue to grow over the next five to 15 years. I cant see that going back to a situation where a pharma company employs thousands of scientists I think that world has gone.

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An evolution in pharma outsourcing | Business - Chemistry World