Continuous manufacturing (CM) — also known as flow chemistry or micro reaction technology (MRT) — is a technique that has been gaining global importance over the past decade as a result of improved process control and reduced operating costs, leading to increased manufacturing profits and a competitive edge. Recent years have shown that the reason for a company to change from “batch” to “flow” have been varied, often depending on the sector, process type of interest and scale of operation. Supply chain security and improvements in process sustainability are strong emerging drivers for the adoption of CM.

With the product key, the infrastructure needed varies greatly and depends on the available chemistry, cost of goods, volumes required and the hazard profile of a transformation. The modularity and flexibility of continuous flow set-ups enables the development of small, agile production plants that can be used for the manufacture of multiple products — with easy re-configuration allowing for rapid product changeover.

Following on from this, the ease of replicating these small footprint systems represents an opportunity for manufacturers to develop a process and subsequently deliver production units across multiple countries to serve the local product demands. This is in stark contrast to the current approach of a single large-scale plant, with warehousing used to manage supply chain disruptions.
With all of these benefits, a logical question follows: Why the slow adoption of MRT?

CHEManager asked executives and industry experts to share their views on drivers as well as barriers for the use of flow chemistry and the prospect for this technology in their industry sector. We proposed to discuss the following aspects:

• In your opinion, what are the strongest drivers (success factors) of the implementation of flow chemistry processes?
• Which barriers are slowing down or impede the implementation of flow chemistry processes?
• What does it need for flow chemistry to be implemented more widely?

Read the insightful answers of the experts here.

Ulrich Mayerhoeffer
Head Technical Evaluation and Development, Arxada

Jean-Baptiste Guillermin
Technical Sales Manager, Axplora

Baburaj Krishnan
Head-CDMO, Drug Substance Development, Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services

Srividya Ramakrishnan
Head, API Process Engineering, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories

Girish Malhotra
President, EPCOT International

Kai Rossen
Chief Scientific Officer, Euroapi

Stephen D Drake
Director of Marketing and Development, Kaneka Americas Holdings

Shawn Walker
SVP Development of Operations & CTO, Veranova

Christophe Girard
Process Engineer, Siegfried

Mark Muldowney
Head of Technology & Innovation,Sterling Pharma Solutions