Shilpa Medicare – the full-service contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) – announces the launch of its new flow chemistry Centre of Excellence (CoE) at CPHI Frankfurt.
Based at the CDMO’s Bangalore site, the Centre unites cross-functional teams across R&D and manufacturing to accelerate process development, scale-up and commercial production for continuous flow.
The new CoE is staffed by a team of more than 100 specialists and integrates Sravathi’s proprietary flow technologies with Sravathi’s advanced continuous reactor platforms, enabling the development and commercialisation of an expanded range of reactions, including fluorination, bromination, nitration, chlorination, oxidation,and Grignard reactions.
Sravathi’s flow chemistry group has already developed over 30 flow-based reactions, successfully transferring more than five pilot-scale processes to client sites for commercial manufacture.
In terms of reactors, the site features more than 50 patented, custom-designed micro and pilot flow reactors, with lab, bench and pilot scales ranging from 30 mL/min to 200 mL/min.
These systems handle multi-phase, catalytic, and gas–liquid reactions under corrosion-resistant materials of construction, ensuring safety and reliability across highly exothermic or hazardous chemistries.
Continuous downstream operations — such as crystallisation, extraction,and thin-film evaporation — allow fully integrated end-to-end processing.
Designed at Sravathi, the reactors have shown consistent and reliable scale-up from laboratory to commercial operations for processes involving gas–liquid and liquid–liquid reactions. By integrating scalability considerations into the design, the time-to-market and risks commonly associated with scale-up have been notably reduced.
The centre includes automated processes for temperature and pressure measurements, meaning monitoring and adjustments can be done remotely.
This high degree of digitalisation ensures reproducibility and scalability while minimising human intervention during flow operation.
Vishnukant Bhutada, MD of Shilpa Medicare, commented: “Flow technology is incredibly high in demand across CDMOs — with only a limited number of players having successfully commercialised processes."
"The key advantage is that it makes possible much-needed dangerous reactions that can be the difference between having a viable and non-viable development programme – so it’s an incredibly important technology now for many types of targets, especially in the oncology intermediates."
"But it is also, by nature, a more sustainable and efficient process than traditional batch designs. Featuring a smaller equipment footprint and runs using advanced tools of automation. So both big pharma and regulators are encouraging increased adoption”
The flow chemistry centre of excellence is now fully operational and open to client collaborations, with services spanning process development, technology transfer, and commercial manufacturing.