Purification specialists Reach Separations and French drug discovery CRO, NovAliX, have entered into a unique alliance to develop supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) capabilities at the NovAliX facility near Strasbourg.

Formed in support of Reach Separations’ strategy to grow its European presence, and in response to a sustained rise in demand for purification expertise from NovAliX’s clients, Reach has made a significant investment at NovAliX’s Strasbourg premises to install new analytical SFC instrumentation. SFC expert Stéphane Dubant will join the team to ensure a smooth transition of projects between Strasbourg and Nottingham.

The alliance involves Reach Separations providing chiral separation and sophisticated purification capabilities, utilising its specialist purification expertise that will provide NovAliX with access to molecules of higher structural complexity with multiple chiral centres, in order to deliver even greater success in medicinal chemistry programmes.

Business Development Director of Reach Separations Peter Ridgway, comments: “Reach Separations and NovAliX have a shared focus on delivering best-in-class client service at all times. Our longstanding relationship means we will offer a fully integrated, insourced service to NovAliX clients with greater access to purification expertise.”

Managing Director of Reach Separations Duncan Cliff, explains: “Growing our presence in Europe is one of our key strategic aims and working with NovAliX in Strasbourg will allow us to establish the business in key European markets and offer increased exposure to new and existing European clients through welcoming Stéphane Dubant to the team.”

Julien Marin, NovAliX Director of Chemistry, says: “Our chemists are tackling synthetic challenges every day across various industries spanning pharmaceuticals, biotech and agrochemical. With the increasing complexity of chemical structures, SFC purification has become an essential tool for chemists, and working hand-in-hand with chiral separation experts from Reach Separation will streamline our internal processes and definitely benefit our clients.”