The CABB Group is offering the development of chemical production processes for the agrochemicals and specialty chemicals sectors as a separate service under the brand ChemCreations. A team of specialist chemists, process engineers, technicians and safety experts will create the optimum manufacturing process for the customer’s specific molecule. CABB can then carry out the resultant process on a commercial contract manufacturing basis.

The overall service is broken down into the individual modules Route Scouting, Process Research, Process Development and Pilot Production, which means that customers can opt for complete process development or just parts of it.

Flexible access to specific skills
The Custom Manufacturing Business Unit of fine chemicals specialist CABB has decades of experience in scaling up processes from the laboratory to a commercial scale. The necessary skills in process development, handling challenging chemical technologies and designing processes and plants are backed up by ultra-modern laboratory facilities and a dedicated pilot line at the Pratteln site.

“As part of our development strategy, we are now also making these capabilities and infrastructure available to companies which do not necessarily require commercial contract manufacturing”, explains CEO Peter Vanacker.

Quicker to market with development services
Market surveys in the agrochemicals sector have shown that resistance to existing active ingredients and more stringent official requirements are leading to ever more complex molecular structures which entail correspondingly sophisticated synthetic pathways. As a result, innovators are increasingly focusing their in-house resources firstly on identifying and developing active ingredients and secondly on registering and marketing them.

Specialist suppliers, however, are increasingly being used for developing the production processes for these new molecules. “This is where having CABB as an experienced and reliable partner can help to establish safe, efficient and cost-effective manufacturing processes and to get new products faster to market”, says Dr. Thomas Eizenhöfer, General Manager of the Custom Manufacturing Business Unit.