Wealth & Finance April 2017

Wealth & Finance International 28 Game-Changing Technology harmaFluidics is a spin-off of the Vrije Universiteit Brus¬sels, and is located in Flanders’ ‘Life Sciences valley’, near Ghent, Belgium. The company is backed by a very strong strategic advisory board of world-class HPLC industry professionals with deep area expertise, globally networked, and broad and varied business and deal experience. PharmaFluidics essentially assists pharmaceutical and life sciences companies identify new targets in complex biological samples. For example, potential drug candidates or biomarkers that can be used to diagnose and follow-up diseases. With their technology, they stimulate new discoveries in research on cancer, cardiovascular diseases and hereditary or chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s. By way of background, Biomarker identification and drug discovery are high-value applications. The average cost of bringing a drug to the mar¬ket amounts to $2.8 billion. The availability of a biomarker can reduce this cost by $900 million per drug according to a report published by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development*. Co-founder and COO Paul Jacobs then tells us more about the company’s revolutionary technology, their key areas of expertise and the successes they have had. “Our technology introduces a game-changing analytical tool: the μPAC™ columns, combining expertise from the semiconductor chip manufacturing industries and the life sciences industries. Our μPAC® columns represent a new generation of liquid chromatography columns that enable to detect many more molecules with higher sensitivity in tiny, complex biological samples, compared to the top-performing columns currently on the market. “The key areas of expertise for PharmaFluidics are the design, litho¬- graphic production, and surface treatment of silicon wafers for use as separation devices in chromatography. With its first product line, the innovative μPAC® Pillar Array Columns, PharmaFluidics targets pro¬- teomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic profiling applications. Behind the scenes, R&D continues to work on further generations of columns with applications in new and broader market segments in the years to come. “In terms of successes we have had recently, I would say that μPAC® micro-Chip columns have been introduced since the end of 2016 to a limited number of pioneer customers for cutting-edge biomarker and drug research & development applications. “We also introduced the μPAC® columns to a broader professional audience, participating in international exhibitions in relevant fields. μPAC® has been very well received and we are now rolling out a comprehensive awareness and technical support program towards key opinion leaders, expert centers and pioneer users at pharma, biotech companies and their specialised contractors. This will help us further the commercial development of our premium μPAC® product family, with a range of specifications and prices.” Revolutionary Technology for Liquid Chromatography Conventional nano--LC columns are fabricated by stacking (packed beds) or depositing (monoliths) material into a capillary. PharmaFlu- id¬ics’ μPAC® (micro Pillar Array Chromatography) column is unique in its kind, fabricated using advanced lithographic micro-machining meth- ods. The separation bed of the μPAC® column is mounted onto silicon wafers and composed of an array of precisely calibrated and ordered pillars, boosting separation resolution and decreasing flow dispersion. “The original idea was conceived by Professor Gert Desmet and Wim De Malsche at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) who pondered the influence of order and disorder on the efficiency of chromatographic separation” Paul explains. Computer Fluid Dynamics simulations showed that highly ordered sep¬aration beds could offer superior performance. Chip etching tech- nology was identified as the optimal way to achieve this degree of order. This is a fundamentally new way of creating LC columns that overcomes the physical limitations hampering the improvement of separation pro- cesses in conventional columns: • The perfect order of the μPAC® beds eliminates dispersive flow patterns present in conventional columns. As a result, elution peaks remain sharper and sensitivity is increased; • μPAC®s operate at moderate pressures, typically lower than 300 bar. Separation channels with exceptional length (50 cm to 200 cm) are therefore possible. These are folded onto a small footprint by interconnecting concatenated bed segments and; • The micromachined backbone of the separation bed forms a rigid structure that is not influenced by pressure. There are no obstruc¬- tions by touching surfaces, and there is no risk for perturbations by pressure fluctuations. Johan Devenyns, Managing Director, then details the opportunities and challenges the company faces in 2017 and beyond. “PharmaFluidics’ main objectives for 2017 are centered on the market launch and commercial validation of its first generation of μPAC® micro-Chip chromatography columns in selected high value niche mar¬kets: metabolomics, proteomics profiling for biomarker discovery and biopharmaceuticals development. “The μPAC® micro-Chip columns have an immediate design and per¬- formance appeal to pioneer users in the pharmaceutical research and development segment. It is our expectation that in the medium term, additional secondary features such as convenience of use, workflow simplification, column longevity and robustness, and reduced solvent consumption will allow for the future generations of μPAC® columns and cartridges to gain substantial market share over traditionally packed columns, also for regulated and routine markets, e.g. in quality control, for a broad range of industry segments. PharmaFluidics helps pharmaceutical and life sciences companies identify new targets in complex biological samples. We spoke to Johan Devenyns, Managing Director and Paul Jacobs, co-founder P 1704WF27