Networking Roundtables
Tuesday, January 27, 2009 • Moscone South Convention Center
Networking Roundtables provide a unique opportunity for attendees and exhibitors to get together with an industry expert to discuss topics relevant to current issues. These are formatted to be a brief presentation, followed by an open discussion forum.
This year's roundtables will again be organized by Scientific Update, a leader in the industry, specializing in educational meetings and roundtables. The group will help lead the discussions and bring in experts from the relevant fields.
Roundtable Schedule
1:30-2:30pm - Scale-up: What's Gone Wrong
This discussion will consider some of the typical failings in processes as they are scaled up and is applicable to sectors of the chemical industry involved in scaling up organic chemistry processes (ie agrochem, pharma, fine chem etc). During the session we will comment on the types of failure modes as well as comment on some aspects of safety and issues arising during technology transfer. The session then moves on to discuss what makes a good process (eg choice of solvent and work-up).
The content will be of interest to anyone involved in transferring processes from laboratory to plant and between plants.
2:45-3:45pm - Increasing Efficiency in Chemical Process R&D
Over the last ten years, new technologies and automation have revolutionised the way in which chemical process research and development can be done. But just how readily has this been implemented on the shop floor - and has it led to genuine efficiency improvements? How do we balance quality and quantity in an R & D environment? How do we decide when (or whether) to invest in new route process research?
This presentation and roundtable discussion aims to explore a range of perspectives regarding efficiency in process R & D, including deciding what to measure and debating key performance indicators. The content of the session is widely applicable across the industry, whether companies are engaged in identifying new routes, seeking process improvements to an existing route, aiming to gain a better understanding of existing processes to ensure greater control and reliability, or a combination of these.
4-5pm - Maximizing Profits Through Process Improvement
In this session we will use the pharmaceutical industry as a vehicle to illustrate some of the issues faced across the industry when developing a product for commercial supply. There is often a requirement to establish a process as soon as possible which, for a number of reasons, must then be fixed ahead of refinement to enable commercial manufacture. For instance, in the pharmaceutical sector a driver for establishing a fixed process is the need to meet the necessary regulatory approval. Thus in many pharmaceutical companies, a primary aim of the process chemistry department is to get regulatory approval for a drug manufacturing process and to transfer the process successfully to manufacturing. While economic viability is an important requirement, many companies move forward sub-optimal processes which are undoubtedly commercially viable, but which are not necessarily optimised for maximum commercial return.
This presentation and roundtable discussion uses case studies to explore the different strategies and tactics employed to maximise the value which excellent process chemistry can bring to the industry.
