Exactmer to lead £7M Innovate UK SMMIP Grant Project on Industrialising UK bio-based solvents for global medicine manufacturing

A new UK-based consortium, led by Exactmer, with strategic support from GSK, has been awarded over £7 million in funding from Innovate UK in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), to advance the production of high purity bio-based solvents for medicines manufacturing. The 36-month project aims to bolster the UK’s leadership in sustainable pharmaceutical manufacturing and accelerate the scale up of bio-based solvents for low carbon medicine manufacturing.

Established by ERM and Ayming, the consortium brings together technology providers, medicines manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies to address one of the sector’s most pressing environmental challenges: reducing emissions linked to solvent use in medicines manufacturing.

 

Collaborating to tackle the barriers to bio-based solvent adoption

While essential to pharmaceutical production, solvents are currently a major contributor to Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions for medicines manufacturers. Replacing petroleum-derived solvents with bio-based alternatives offers a circular pathway to decarbonisation. However, achieving the high purity and moisture control required for pharmaceutical applications has proven energy- and cost-intensive, delaying wider adoption.

The consortium will bring together key players from across the pharma manufacturing and fine chemicals industry to overcome these barriers, using advanced membrane purification technologies to industrialize the production of cost-effective, low-greenhouse gas, bio-based solvents. This innovation will allow manufacturers to adopt these alternatives without major changes to existing infrastructure or processes.

The project will aim to validate these alternatives in existing medicines manufacturing for small-molecules and oligonucleotides, de-risk regulation pathways, and establish a supply chain for the production of pharmaceutical-grade bio-based solvents. It will target lifecycle greenhouse gas reductions of at least 60% compared with conventional solvents, paving the way for global commercial scale production by the early 2030s.

 

Consortium members

ERM and Ayming initiated the project and coordinated the consortium’s successful funding application to Innovate UK, as part of the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing

Innovation Programme. The consortium of technology providers, manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies was established following the successful Expression of Interest phase, to support the UK’s production of high purity bio-based solvents.

Consortium members include:

· Technology providers – Exactmer, Queen Mary University London, Atmospheric AI and SOLVE Chemistry

· Solvent manufacturers – OXCCU, Celtic Renewables and University of Leeds

· Global pharmaceutical companies – GSK and Croda

· Global life sciences company – Cytiva

· Translational research and innovation organisation – CPI

Andrew Livingston, CEO of Exactmer and Vice Principal for Research Innovation at Queen Mary University London: “We are excited to be involved in this challenging new project which will enable wider use of biobased solvents in the pharmaceutical production supply chain. It’s great to be part of this broad-based industry collaboration, and we look forward to driving the Government’s Industrial Strategy forward through Life Sciences Manufacturing.”

 

Funding

This project is funded by Innovate UK, in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), as part of the Sustainable Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Programme (SMMIP). SMMIP supports innovation in medicines manufacturing to reduce environmental impact, improve efficiency, and promote sustainable practices across the sector.

Exactmer Secures €2.5M EIC Accelerator Grant to Scale Nanostar Sieving® for Sustainable Oligonucleotide Manufacturing

Exactmer, a life sciences technology provider specialising in membrane-enabled manufacturing platforms for exact-sequence polymer therapeutics, has been awarded €2.5million (£2.18million) from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator.

The 24-month OptOligo project will accelerate the scale-up and regulatory advancement of Exactmer’s Nanostar Sieving® platform, a fully liquid-phase synthesis technology, for scalable and sustainable oligonucleotide (oligo) manufacturing. The programme targets batch production of up to 200mmol (~1kg) and will advance the technology to meet regulatory standards required for GMP deployment at customer manufacturing sites.

The project will build directly upon the success of Exactmer’s earlier EIC Transition project, AltOligo, which was used to develop alternative oligo synthesis chemistries. Now, OptOligo will accelerate this innovation to commercial realisation.

A Scalable and Sustainable Liquid-Phase Platform for Oligo Synthesis

Nanostar Sieving® integrates scalable, liquid-phase chemistry, with Exactmer’s proprietary organic solvent nanofiltration membranes, enabling efficient purification of the growing sequence-defined polymer, and removal of reaction by-products, directly within the synthesis process.

Operating entirely in solution, the platform delivers significant advantages:

  • Reduced reagent consumption: <1.2equivalents used in phosphoramidite oligo chemistry, a ~33% reduction in costs and waste compared to solid-phase synthesis
  • Up to 60% lower solvent use: with Exactmer’s proprietary in-process solvent recycling loop enabling filtration and reuse of virgin solvents within a single cycle
  • Elimination of halogenated solvents
  • Improved safety through closed-loop membrane separations, which can be retrofitted to existing pharma manufacturing assets
  • Inherent scalability to kilogram-scale batches

This membrane-enabled approach provides a more efficient and environmentally responsible route to oligo manufacture, supporting the growing global demand for oligo therapeutics.

Unique Membrane Technology Enabling GMP at Customer Sites

At the heart of Nanostar Sieving® are Exactmer’s proprietary Exact™ membranes, developed from more than a decade of research in organic solvent nanofiltration from the Livingston Lab at Imperial College London.

Through OptOligo, Exactmer will further optimise, industrialise, and qualify these unique membranes to meet regulatory requirements for GMP manufacturing. The company’s strategy is to enable validated Nanostar Sieving technology to be implemented directly within customers’ facilities and at Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs). By 2030, at least six oligo medicines are expected to be approved for prevalent diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and hepatitis, with each one requiring an estimated 500 kg per year of drug substance. Current solid-phase synthesis is limited by batch size, with global manufacturing capacity for these medicines capped at approximately 200 kg per year, for all drugs. This demonstrates how impactful Exactmer’s scalable platform can be, and how timely the sustainable OptOligo innovation will be.

By ensuring membrane robustness, reproducibility, and regulatory readiness, Exactmer aims to provide pharmaceutical manufacturers with a deployable, scalable platform for therapeutic production.

Unlocking Broader Polymer Therapeutics Applications

While OptOligo focuses on oligo production, advancing Nanostar Sieving® also expands its potential across Exactmer’s wider portfolio. The platform is applicable to the manufacture of Exact PEGs for precision PEGylation, multifunctional antibody–drug conjugate (ADC) linkers, peptide therapeutics, and other advanced polymer-based medicines requiring exact sequence control.

Professor Andrew Livingston, CEO of Exactmer, commented:

“This award recognises the transformative potential of our Nanostar Sieving® technology. As a life sciences technology provider, our goal is to equip pharmaceutical manufacturers with scalable and sustainable production platforms for advanced therapeutics.

By operating fully in the liquid phase, Nanostar Sieving reduces reagent use, eliminates halogenated solvents, and enables safer, inherently scalable manufacturing. Through this grant, we will further advance and qualify our unique membrane technologies to meet regulatory standards and enable GMP manufacturing directly within our customers’ facilities. In doing so, we are strengthening not only the future of oligonucleotide production, but also broader applications across PEGylation, ADC linkers, peptides, and other exact-sequence polymer medicines.

Its such a pleasure that we have been able to follow the whole innovation path from an ERC Advanced Grant, through Proof of Concept and Transition Grants, to an Accelerator and I am very grateful for the ERC/EIC Innovation system support”

The EIC Accelerator supports start-ups and SMEs with grant funding of up to €2.5million, to scale-up their market-disruptive or game-changing products and innovation.

Exactmer is one of 61 companies selected in the latest EIC Accelerator funding round — and one of only five UK companies — to receive this highly competitive support.

Exactmer Secures FASST Grant to Revolutionize Oligonucleotide Synthesis

Exactmer is excited to announce that it has been awarded a Flexible, Agile, Scalable and Sustainable medicines manufacturing (FASST) grant from the Innovate UK Transforming Medicine Manufacturing program. The grant, valued at £1,234,617, supports the 24-month BioNanostar project, a collaborative effort between Exactmer, the University of Manchester and Imperial College London. This consortium is uniquely positioned to develop a streamlined bioprocess for oligo assembly that promises increased efficiency, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness. 

About BioNanostar: 

The Sustainable Bioprocess for Oligonucleotide Manufacture using Nanostar Sieving (BioNanostar) project aims to revolutionize the synthesis of oligonucleotides (oligos), which are crucial in gene therapy, diagnostics, and drug delivery. Current manufacturing methods, such as Solid Phase Synthesis (SPS), face significant challenges, including high Process Mass Intensity (PMI) and cost inefficiencies, limiting large-scale production. 

Exactmer’s innovative Nanostar Sieving technology offers a transformative solution to oligo synthesis. By employing a liquid-phase process and membrane filtration, Nanostar Sieving facilitates the precise and scalable iterative addition of nucleotide monomers to a growing Nanostar hub. The BioNanostar grant will combine this technology with enzyme chemistry to create a greener, more sustainable manufacturing process. Advanced modeling techniques will be employed to fully optimize reaction and process parameters. 

Project Objectives: 

The BioNanostar project aims to enhance process efficiency by combining Nanostar Sieving with enzyme technology for linear oligo assembly in aqueous media, guided by advanced digital modelling techniques. It also seeks to promote sustainability by reducing the use of organic solvents and other chemicals, utilizing natural nucleotides as building blocks.  

Jason Micklefield, Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of Manchester said, “current oligonucleotides synthesis is highly step and atom inefficient, relies on large quantities of deleterious reagents and creates a huge amount of harmful waste. We aim to address this by developing more sustainable and cleaner oligonucleotides synthesis using enzymes operating under benign aqueous conditions.” 

Additionally, the project focuses on ensuring scalability by developing advanced membranes optimized for aqueous media and designing bio-synthesizers for commercial-scale production. 

Impact: 

“We are thrilled to partner with the University of Manchester and Imperial College London on this groundbreaking project,” said Piers Gaffney, CSO of Exactmer. “BioNanostar has the potential to significantly advance oligonucleotide synthesis, making it more efficient and environmentally friendly, ultimately benefitting a wide range of therapeutic applications.” 

The BioNanostar project aims to create a novel, adaptable method for oligonucleotide biomanufacture, addressing a broad spectrum of diseases and reducing final product costs. The integration of cutting-edge technologies aligns with the competition’s goals, promising significant advancements in the bioprocessing and biomanufacturing of oligos. 

Exactmer joins forces with leading institutions to secure Innovative Technologies Award

Exactmer is excited to announce the successful application to the Innovative Technologies for Nucleic Acid Medicines Manufacturing competition, delivered by the Innovate UK Transforming Medicine Manufacturing programme. Exactmer will work in collaboration with CPI, Queen Mary University of London and AstraZeneca, forming a consortium of leading experts in membrane production, nanofiltration, oligo manufacture and commercialisation. 

The consortium will receive £1.8 million funding for a 24-month long project aimed at Maximising Efficiency of Liquid Phase Oligo Synthesis (MELOS). The project will focus on improving the process efficiency and sustainability of Exactmer’s Nanostar Sieving technology for liquid-phase synthesis of oligonucleotides at large scale. 

Oligonucleotides, or oligos, are short chains of nucleotides that are used in a variety of applications, including gene therapy, diagnostics, and drug delivery. The current methods for manufacturing oligos are often inefficient and environmentally unfriendly. Nanostar Sieving technology is a new approach to oligo synthesis that uses a membrane to separate the growing oligo from unreacted monomers, allowing for more efficient and sustainable production of oligos. 

The MELOS project will focus on improving the following aspects of the Nanostar Sieving technology: 

  • Process efficiency: The team will develop new chemistries and process conditions to improve the yield and throughput of the Nanostar Sieving process. 
  • Sustainability: The team will develop methods to reduce the use of solvents and other chemicals in the Nanostar Sieving process. 
  • Scalability: The team will develop methods to scale up the Nanostar Sieving process for commercial production of oligos. 

“We are excited to be working on this project with such a talented team of partners,” said Piers Gaffney, CSO of Exactmer. “The MELOS project has the potential to revolutionize the way oligos are manufactured, making them more affordable and accessible to patients.” 

This is a significant step forward in the development of the Nanostar Sieving technology. The MELOS project is expected to lead to improved process efficiency, sustainability, and scalability of the technology, and in the future it could benefit millions of patients worldwide.

Exactmer Awarded £2.49M for Alternative Oligo Chemistries

Exactmer is delighted to announce it has been awarded €2.49M (£2.15M) from the European Innovation Council (EIC) through its Transition programme, to fund ground-breaking research in the synthesis and manufacture of oligonucleotide (oligo) therapeutics. The funding will fast-track the development of new oligo chemistries for Exactmer’s patented Nanostar Sieving technology, which enables the large-scale manufacture of exact polymeric pharmaceuticals.

‘Alternative Chemistry for Oligonucleotide Synthesis using Nanostar Sieving’, ALTOLIGO, will develop innovative synthesis routes to revolutionise the production of oligos, using greener and cheaper methodologies, and alleviating burdensome supply-chains. In contrast to current methodologies, which rely on the classical phosphoramidite approach using solid-phase platforms, Nanostar Sieving employs the liquid phase for synthesis, making the process inherently scalable. Moving away from dependence on solid supports allows for novel, non-classical syntheses to be developed and optimised, pushing the boundaries for efficiency in oligo production.

Exactmer’s CEO, Prof. Andrew Livingston said: “Exactmer is a technology innovator in oligo manufacture. Our Nanostar Sieving platform harnesses over a decade of research at the forefront of membrane technologies, from the Livingston Group at Queen Mary University of London, and provides a step-change in exact polymer manufacturing. This makes it the ideal platform to address the needs of the oligo synthesis market. This EIC Transition funding will enable us to deliver cheaper and more-efficient oligo manufacturing methods, ultimately bringing these innovative therapeutics to all patients in need.”

The EIC Transition programme offers start-ups and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) grants of up to €2.5 million to fund activities that go beyond the experimental proof of principle, addressing both technology and market development. The programme is being financed through the UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee funding in the UK.

Exactmer began as a spin-out company from Imperial College in December 2017, and is now a fast-growing SME based in Londoneast-UK Technical Park in Dagenham, East London. Contact us at [email protected] if you are interested in partnering on our oligo synthesis work developing through ALTOLIGO, or to find out more about our work in this area.

Exactmer awarded with SMART Grant from Innovate UK

Exactmer is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a SMART Grant from Innovate UK. Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and harness the potential of new ideas.

Through this 16-month long project, due to start later this year, Exactmer will develop a disruptive new approach for the synthesis of multi-functional Polyethylene Glycols (mfPEGs).

PEGs help to regulate the transport and retention of medicine in the body and can be used as linkers in Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs). ADCs have been developed as a ‘magic-bullet’ for cancer treatment, delivering toxic payloads directly to cancer cells; however, the linkers currently used in ADCs are unadaptable and ‘cargos’, such as drugs, dyes, or cell-penetrating agents, cannot be attached to the linker, ultimately limiting the efficacy of ADC therapeutics.

Through this SMART project Exactmer will use its proprietary Nanostar Sieving technology platform to produce PEGs, comprising sequences of Exactmer’s completely-new, EG-based monomers, each containing a side-group designed to attach useful cargos. When polymerised, these monomers will form multi-functional PEGs (mfPEGs) and will be used as linkers in ADCs. By increasing water-solubility, drug-to-antibody ratios and enabling incorporation of multifunctional components, mfPEGs could revolutionise ADC therapeutics.

Exactmer looks forward to contributing to the development of improved ADCs in the next years. Contact us at [email protected] if you would like to know more about our work in this area.

Exactmer awarded Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Queen Mary University of London

Exactmer, together with Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), has been awarded its first Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), from Innovate UK.

Through this KTP, Exactmer and QMUL will develop new synthesis methods for exact Polyethylene Glycol polymers (PEGs), using Exactmer’s proprietary Nanostar Sieving platform. When added to therapeutics drugs, PEGs help to regulate the transport and retention of the medicine in the body. Their water solubility also lends them useful in drug delivery scaffolds and nanomedicine. However, current manufacturing limitations means that producing PEGs is difficult to do accurately; to do so is challenging, time-consuming and expensive.

To solve this, Exactmer is developing its breakthrough technology, Nanostar Sieving, to revolutionise PEG manufacturing. Through the KTP, QMUL and Exactmer will address manufacturing and analytical challenges and will accelerate the commercialisation of exact-PEGs for applications in the PEGylated drugs and Antibody Drug Conjugates markets.

The KTP programme is a collaboration between universities and businesses in the UK, to help overcome challenges of innovation and address specific obstacles to technology development. It is a partially-government funded initiative which gives companies access to the know-how and expertise of academic institutions, through a project designed to address a specific business need.

For more information on the Nanostar Sieving platform and our exact-PEG polymers, please contact the Exactmer team at [email protected].

 

Exactmer wins Startup Pitch and Partner Award at BioVaria, Munich

Exactmer is delighted to have been awarded the Startup Pitch and Partner award in the ‘Emerging’ category, at BioVaria 2022.

Exactmer’s winning pitch on the development of our proprietary Nanostar Sieving technology for oligonucleotide synthesis was chosen by a jury of leading investors, in a showcase of 13 hand-picked start ups from across Europe.

BioVaria is Europe’s leading showcasing event for life-science technologies, targeting technology scouts, business developers and investors, and bringing together Europe’s leading tech transfer professionals, innovators from academia and representatives of the global biotech and pharma industry.

This year’s event was held in Munich in May, bringing together over 230 life-science innovators to the two-day event, with more than 60 licensable innovations presented by leading players from all over Europe, from therapeutic and diagnostic approaches to platform technologies.

Read the full feature here.

Future Leaders Fellowships granted to Dr. Jiang in collaboration with Exactmer for the development of breakthrough technology

Exactmer is excited to announce that Dr. Zhiwei Jiang has been selected as one of eighty-four of the most promising science and research leaders, the successful leaders will benefit from a total of £97.8m investment to tackle major global challenges and to commercialise innovations in the UK. The Future Leaders Fellowships scheme helps universities and businesses in the UK recruit, develop and retain the world’s best researchers and innovators.

Dr. Jiang received his PhD degree from Imperial College London as a membrane scientist, and afterwards contributed as Research Associate for 5 years. During this period, he developed ultrathin membranes dedicated for molecular separations that outperformed the commercial membranes available on the market. He also worked closely with BP and ExxonMobil where he participated in the filing of patents for the development of two-dimensional materials as separation membranes.

 

He will be working in collaboration with Exactmer during his fellowship to advance membrane technology. Exactmer is a fast-growing company based in East London, developing a proprietary technology platform to break through the barriers of making exact polymers such as oligonucleotides, PEGylated drugs and ADC linkers. Oligonucleotide medicines work by interfering with how genes are expressed to limit the production of detrimental proteins and have shown success in the treatment of rare diseases. This next-generation therapeutic class is now being explored to treat chronic diseases that affect much larger patient populations.

 

At the heart of Exactmer’s platform is a molecular separation membrane, used to separate a growing polymer from residual monomers. Dr. Jiang’s Future Leaders Fellowships will last for 4 years, and it aims to fabricate membranes with well-defined and controlled pore size, which can withstand the harsh chemical environments required for polymer synthesis. Dr. Jiang’s collaboration with Exactmer will lead to the development of an entirely new membrane class known as isoporous organic solvent nanofiltration membranes (iOSN).

 

Dr. Jiang will work on the development of the membrane technology that will bring considerable advances in the synthesis of exact polymers at Exactmer. This will allow the manufacturing of high purity and high yield products, assist Exactmer to develop their technology for the upcoming demand in the oligos market, and subsequently help millions of patients around the world.

 

 

Please visit the following link for more information about the Future Leaders Fellows:

84 new Future Leaders Fellows and £100m for next round announced – UKRI

Proof of Concept Grant

We are excited to announce that Exactmer has been awarded Proof of Concept funding from the European Research Council (ERC), as part of the EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

Exactmer will use this research grant, worth €150,000, to fund a 18-month research project to demonstrate that its technology can unlock the tremendous potential of oligonucleotide therapies through dramatically reducing manufacturing costs and increasing production capacity.

This research grant will help us to move our ground-breaking technology towards commercialisation.

The full press release is available here.