Every group needs a leader. In our case, that’s the duty of a research group within the Institute Charles Gerhardt (ICGM) at the University of Montpellier, in France. This partner is responsible for work package 1 (WP1), Management and coordination, making sure everyone works together smoothly. This means guaranteeing an effective communication flow between partners… and solving any issues that might arise during the project’s lifespan. For a huge consortium such as ours, with 17 partners stretched over 11 different countries, this is no small thing! In addition, this research unit at Montpellier also leads the development of innovative mechanochemical methods at a lab scale. If you want to know more details, keep reading!
Managing a Horizon Europe project
As coordinators of IMPACTIVE, that means that Montpellier has a duty of, well… coordinating 17 partners. They ensure that the consortium meets its goals and objectives and liaises with the European Commission. Their duties also include research data and outputs management, considering IMPACTIVE has an Open Science Strategy. After all, this team is the scientific leader of the project. Such responsibility means that they have a comprehensive view of the project, by being involved with all WPs, making sure our scientific achievements are exceptional.
Since IMPACTIVE deals with a sensitive topic (pharmaceuticals), this group at the University of Montpellier also addresses ethics and risk management. However, our coordinator is not alone in this endeavour. Periodic monitoring of risks will be conducted by WP leaders who will support our manager work. This partner also helps with the developing of an ethics plan prior to the commencement of each task. This provides a basis to identify, minimize, and manage ethical issues. Last but not least, management duties include taking care of the financial resources. We know that talking about money is hard, but in a project such as ours, we need to use it wisely so that all partners’ needs are met, allowing them to develop their work effectively.
Lab scale mechanochemical synthesis
Montpelier is not only responsible of the scientific strategy of the project, which is already a lot of work. They are also behind the lab-scale synthesis of various active pharmaceutical ingredients and key intermediates. This means they are responsible of the scientific strategy of WP2. For this, they use different mechanochemical processes, both in discontinuous (batch) and continuous. Specifically, this team is handling ball milling, twin screw extrusion and resonant acoustic mixing (RAM) techniques.
If we were to describe the research at Montpellier with one word, it would be thorough. They try to carry out the reactions using as many different techniques as possible. For batch processes they use both ball milling and RAM techniques. And then, the most promising outcomes are then translated to the extruder, the continuous process. This “leave-no-stone-unturned” approach enables IMPACTIVE to identify the best technology for a specific transformation and facilitates the transition from a batch process to a continuous one.
Data management and sharing
Since this team lies at the core of the WP dealing with synthesis, this means that they are shipping numerous compounds across the different WPs. This starts with WP3: multi-component forms and formulation. This WP excels in crystallographic identification, meaning that their experts can tell whether a compound is crystalline or amorphous and which technologies are suitable to achieve each form. So, Montpellier’s approach involves identifying the most promising systems, and see what’s worth translating over to the other work packages.
However, this is not the whole picture. This group at the University of Montpellier contributes a portion of the work, but they are just one piece of the puzzle that needs to be combined with data from other scientists. Ultimately, it consists of a bidirectional process with suggestions coming from all WPs to achieve the goal of scaling the results. We mentioned that our leader works at the lab scale. At the Montpellier unit, they go up to hundreds of grams per day using twin screw extrusion. Clearly, this capacity falls short of satisfying market needs. Therefore, we have scientists in WP5 who will manage kilo-scale production. Nevertheless, Montpellier also has some tasks within this WP, focusing on large-scale RAM synthesis of the most promising systems developed by the partners involved in WP2.
Regarding the best method for synthesising a compound, there are several variables, beyond just yield, like time or costs, that are not always directly comparable. One very important consideration for IMPACTIVE is the environmental impact. Taking all these outcomes into account is a challenge faced by Montpellier as well as the other partners. This is all about demonstrating that mechanochemistry is a viable alternative, even at the scale required for organic synthesis in real-world applications, such as active pharmaceutical ingredients in the case of IMPACTIVE.
Our consortium leverages the collective expertise of scientists from a wide spectrum of fields, making us more than prepare to address such challenge. Proof of this is that the University of Montpellier partner has already achieved plenty of interesting preliminary results, together with other partners. We cannot talk about them yet… But papers and other public results will come. Not today, but, surely, in a few months.
