Nanotechnology World - Nanotech Company Introduces First of A Line of Chiral Columns

Nanotech Company Introduces First of A Line of Chiral Columns

Evolved Nanomaterial Sciences (ENS), a Cambridge, MA, USA, company that uses patented nanotechnology to revolutionise the chiral drug development process, announced today the release of a new normal phase analytical chiral column that achieves previously unattainable separations for small molecules.

“Small chiral molecules form the building blocks of many of today’s most promising therapies, and yet are often impossible or to separate when they fall below 200 m.w. using conventional chiral HPLC columns,” said ENS CEO Robert Pucciariello. “Utilising a patented nanotechnology, the ENS Analytical NP Chiral Column has demonstrated superior performance on low molecular weight compounds across a broad range of molecular families. Moreover, ENS’ technology scales to manufacture without changing method development, dramatically speeding up and simplifying the drug development process.”

Unlike current analytical HPLC columns, which can be time-consuming and frustrating to use, ENS’ chiral column is highly effective at separating a broad spectrum of chiral chemical compounds, including both large and small molecules. An ENS Analytical NP Chiral Column can separate chiral alcohols, free amines, terpenes, alkaloids and amino acid derivatives. A number of compounds within these classes, as well as entire classes such as small alcohols and hydrocarbons, have proven very difficult to separate employing conventional chiral column technology.

Chiral separation is a process by which scientists, particularly in drug development and clinical trials, separate mirror-image molecules: one of which is often therapeutic or beneficial; the other of which can produce unwanted side effects. Chiral separation is an often costly, tedious process that slows down the discovery process and adds significant time and budgetary constraints to both the development and production of important new drugs. Yet, most of the top selling drugs in the world are chiral-based, including Lipitor^®, Zocor^®, Advair^®, Norvasc^®, Viagra^® and as many as 90% of all drugs in development are said to be chiral.

The ENS Analytical NP Chiral Column is the first of several new column releases ENS planned for 2006, according to Pucciariello. The company’s patented nanotechnology is easily scalable to semi-prep, prep columns to bulk, dramatically reducing the need for new method development and radically simplifying each step in the process from discovery thorough scale-up.

More information: http://www.ensnano.com/