Where Complex Chemistry and Digital Innovation Collide

INTRODUCTION

Dear Community,

Looking back, one recurring topic in Synthesis is the level of innovation required to make complex chemical processes happen reliably, efficiently and at the required scale.

For THE LEAD REACTION in Issue 9, I’m delighted to share a future-facing interview with David Ford, a chemist and automation guru who has been with us for almost a decade and has been appointed to the newly created position of Senior Director, Digital Technologies. David is naturally drawn to the exciting interplay between complex chemistry and laboratory digital infrastructure. He knows that, by applying the right technology and collecting the right data, we can gain new or deeper process understanding, automate challenging or laborious steps and perhaps even turn “desperate” measures into front-runners.

As you read this, you may be looking forward to CPHI in Milan, where I’m sure complex chemistry and digital technologies will be very much on display (and not just at the Cambrex stand). In fact, there is a new zone dedicated to “AI and Tech” and “pharma’s digital future.”

Like David, I’m excited to see where the next decade takes us – especially given the progress we’ve seen in just 12 months. And I’m confident that our team of innovators will be leading the way.

Until next time,

Matt Bio

THE LEAD REACTION

Brave Innovation

Synthesis speaks with David Ford, Senior Director, Digital Technologies at Cambrex, to find out what the intersection of complex chemistry and lab innovation means for the pharmaceutical industry moving forward.

What sparked your interest in science and technology?

As a kid, science and technology were ever-present. My dad is a biomedical engineer and my mom is a chemical engineer. My mom ran her own filter testing company, where I worked when I was young; I started out on garden duty, picking up rocks to save the lawn mower, before graduating to the lab environment when I was a little older.

At college (UC Berkley), I followed my mom’s footsteps into chemical engineering but discovered that the forward-looking research topics pursued by the faculty (futuristic microfluidics, biological applications) were not fully reflected in the undergraduate curriculum. Much of the advanced coursework was geared to a career in the petrochemical industry, which wasn’t for me.

I felt that chemistry was a better fit, so I made the switch. I was attracted to chemical biology at first, but ended up falling in love with organic chemistry. Completing my PhD studies at Harvard University with Eric Jacobsen was a great experience. What sticks in my mind the most is the amount of freedom that I was given to pursue different research avenues. If a project took a two-week detour to try something totally speculative, I didn’t have to convince anybody. And that was great for somebody like me, with a lot of curiosity and a tendency to tinker.

Where have you already seen the benefit of the close interplay between complex (process) chemistry and digital technologies?

Initially, we started building digital tools in the context of continuous manufacturing and flow chemistry. Back then, continuous manufacturing was considered something radical that was only used in the most desperate situations in chemistry; for example, cases where a company had already tried to scale up a process only to be faced with a batch failure.

With such inherent complexity, we knew we needed to be able to interrogate data to explain issues that would otherwise be complete mysteries. Rich data gave us insight, direction and confidence to make the right changes for good reason.

Over time, our understanding of continuous manufacturing improved – thanks to that all-important data – and we found ourselves being able to apply the approach in cases that were less dire.

The field of peptide synthesis is another area where digital technologies have been really impactful – again born out of necessity (in this case, the need to meet the demand driven by exploding interest in peptide drugs, such as GLP-1 receptor agonists). Liquid phase peptide synthesis is an attractive alternative to solid phase synthesis, but it demands many liquid–liquid extractions, which can be difficult to automate and laborious to do by hand. Designing and building digital tools to control those processes, while retaining both flexibility and reliability, has made a huge difference to how we actually execute the science.

Though desperation provided us with the initial motivation to learn how to perfect these tools, our successes have lowered the barrier for future chemists and opened doors to alternative paths forward.

An impossible question, but how do you think the next decade will play out?

You’re right; that’s an impossible question, but in light of recent advances in AI, it is one that people are asking themselves across every industry and every facet of life.

I think it’s hard to overstate just how dramatic a change we’ve witnessed over the last 12 months. Yes, the tools were already available 12 months ago (and some forward-looking colleagues of mine were using such tools 2-3 years ago), but the results weren’t as impressive. Whether you used AI assistance or not, the overall time to complete a task wasn’t dramatically different.

Today, we are seeing a five- to ten-fold acceleration of software development tasks. The speed at which we can build new digital processes and interconnect them is faster than it has ever been. Approaches such as high-throughput experimentation and closed loop optimization have, until recently, existed on the periphery – often only considered when facing particularly challenging situations. I predict that we’re going to see such approaches really stepping into a central role in day-to-day work.

We are increasingly being given the opportunity to stay laser-focused on the most important aspects of our objectives and granted new insight into how they fit into the big picture. We are able to benefit from past experience by accessing information that is more readily at our fingertips. We can rapidly consider how different parameters might impact a process at a different scale. We can more accurately find answers to questions that may have been economically infeasible to answer. And we are increasingly (and thankfully) quickly shifting from best guesses to informed decisions.

Science is very exciting. But it can also be repetitive, challenging and frustrating at times. Beyond a quicker path to the answer or even success, I believe the right digital technologies and tools will also make the work more rewarding and fun.

To read David’s full interview, click here.

ANALYZE THIS

Celebrating Milan 2026

Next week, Milan plays host city to CPHI 2026. And though we’re happy to take the opportunity to invite you to our stand (#6C2), there are other coincidental reasons for devoting this section to Milan 2026.

Firstly, our Milan site is celebrating 80 years in operation this year. Founded in 1946, our Milan site is 35 years older than Cambrex itself. Just 18 years later, the site received its first FDA inspection before growing to accommodate the manufacture of approximately 100 APIs annually for the global market.

Secondly, we very recently announced the groundbreaking of a $30 million expansion for Cambrex Milan. With expected completion in H2 2027, the new facility will bring advanced analytical development and process R&D capabilities, reinforcing Cambrex’s commitment to tackling the most complex small molecule development.

“Breaking ground on this new facility is a testament to the enduring legacy and expertise of our Milan team,” said Claudio Russolo, Chief Operating Officer at Cambrex. “For 80 years, this site has been a cornerstone of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Europe. With this expansion, we are investing not only in new technologies and capabilities, but in the future of our people and our partners.”

Finally, the keen-eyed among you may have gathered that Cambrex will also be celebrating its 45th anniversary at CPHI Milan.

We hope to see you there!

THE CATALYST

What we are reading…

To expand on the happy collision between complex chemistry and digital innovation highlighted in THE LEAD REACTION, we point you towards “The return of the tool-building chemist” by none other than Matt Bio and David Ford.

Part historical perspective, part state-of-the-art narrative, the article follows the cyclic journey of the chemist – from tool builder to expert tool user to tool builder – sharing landmark technology and research along the way.

In part thanks to the recent and significant advances in AI noted by David in THE LEAD REACTION, chemists are no longer constrained by the limits of someone else’s imagination. The modern-day (and future) chemist is free to design and build previously out-of-reach tools.

What do these new tools look like for process development chemists? “Integrated workflows of sensors, robots, code, and algorithms that reveal how a process behaves before it reaches the plant,” Matt and David write. This dramatic shift from the disconnected laboratory to the connected and automated lab promises not only increased speed but also deeper understanding – a powerful combination indeed.

Read the full article.

THE SIDEBAR

Optimizing complex API processes through smarter, data-driven experimentation

Design of experiments (DoE) approaches and many different tools, including automated reactors equipped with probes that gather relevant process data, allow us to build the models and knowledge that we need with the minimum number of experiments.