When Other Resins do not Perform

We have more than 10 years of resin development experience from custom development projectsin highly difficult separations - our proven track record. These projects show excellent success rates and have in many cases been a savior when it comes to tasks that have been considered impossible.

• Food 40%
• Pharma 20%
• Clinical 20%
• Tobacco 10%
• Other 10%

As regulations change, industries may be forced to reduce contaminants in their products. The food, beverage, pharma, consumer products and life science industries are constantly confronted with new separation challenges as the result of this ever changing regulatory environment. 

Our answer to these difficult purification challenges is tailor made resins, made with molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) technique. And our business model will serve you: profit comes only if a project is successful and a resin is industrialised – strong motivation to succeed.

Through innovative polymer synthesis technology, MIP Technologies has the ability to design and synthesize the optimal resin for a customer’s specific need.

Examples of Use

• Highly selective removal of unwanted contaminants
• Targeted recovery of desired compounds – e.g. to enrich a valuable compound
• Increased resolution of compounds – when other resins do not perform
• Agricultural residues in food ingredients
• By-products or starting materials in pharmaceuticals
• Compounds originating from microorganisms
• Circumventing a standard unit operation such as distillation or liquid-liquid extraction
• Large scale purifications, e.g. very large or too many columns required
• Undesired chemicals involved such as large amounts of salts, flammable organic solvents or toxics 

Direct Advantages

• Higher capacity, volume and flow
• High pressure stability due to high polymeric cross-linkage
• Prolonged resin lifetime
• Decreased or zero solvent use
• Replaces toxic reagents - greener chemistry

Why Work with Us?

Because of our Capabilities

• Strong expertise in custom polymer resin design
• Large in-house resin library holding >2500 start candidates
• Off-the-shelf industrial resins available in bulk quantities
• Development of novel resins and optimization for industrial use
• Scale-up & production facilities
• Long experience in purification of small and oligomeric molecules
• ISO9001 certified
• Experience with food grade regulations
• Swedish quality

Because of How We Work with you

• Total discretion is assured throughout the project (Non-Disclosure Agreements)
• We keep a close communication with the partner
• Complete project agreement prior to start
• We work as an extension of your own research group
• Disciplined documentation, reporting and traceability of data
• Our business model: profit if project is successful and a resin is industrialised – strong motivation to succeed

Because of our track record

• Polymeric resin development collaborations since year 2000
• 75% success rate in conducted projects
• Our customers include a large number of top 100 companies

To learn more about what MIP Technologies can do to improve your specific process, please contact us at busdev@biotage.com.

Resin Development Services

MIP Techs’ tool box and expertise towards selective resins cover preparation of conventional polymeric resins but also the design of selective materials such as Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIPs) or designed resins. Those resins can be engineered to bind target compounds or classes of structurally related target compounds with high selectivity.

MIP Tech offers its services in a close collaboration in the development of custom-designed resins and MIPs for specific industrial processes. These collaborations have been targeted towards the development of tailor-made separation materials so solve customer specific industrial scale challenges.

How Does it Work?

In the development phase we work closely with partners to engineer a resin that will meet demanding separation or extraction challenges. A typical custom project that MIP Tech conducts in close collaboration with the partner is divided into three major phases:

Phase 1: Discovery

After the customers’ separation problem has been analyzed, candidate resins of different compositions are selected from the MIP Tech resin library, and evaluated in a screening procedure following conditions that mimic the actual separation problem.

For many applications, suitable resins are already present in the MIP Tech resin library. If no satisfactory hit is identified, new resins are designed. The outcome of the Discovery Module is a prototype resin that may be used as is (proceed to Scale-Up Phase directly) or further optimized in the Optimization Module.

A screening run reveals several resins exhibiting retention towards the target compound. Some resins have retention of 40% and above. In this case, one hit resin (EA023) has a close to 100 % retention under the screening conditions.

Typical duration: 0.5–4 months.

Phase 2: Optimization

In the Optimization Module, the binding properties of the prototype resin are optimized. In particular for industrial applications, further development of the resin is desirable to improve performance, by optimizing particle size, dispersity, surface chemistry, porosity and other properties. Statistical DoE (design-of-experiments) methods are employed at this stage of the development process. The separation or extraction methodology may also be adapted to the desired process.

The optimization module results in a powerful separation material with the ability to very selectively remove a contaminant from the main product.

The resin optimization is iterated, gradually improving the performance of the separation material. The final resin performs considerably better than the first generation material and outperforms benchmark resins.

Outcome of a Design of Experiment. By varying different synthetic factors during polymer synthesis, the responses (eg the selectivity of the final adsorbent) differ accordingly.

Contour plots or response surface plots of an DoE outcome. By selecting the optimal proportions of synthetic parameters, the “sweet spot” of the synthesis is determined.

I a favorable chromatographic separation, the contamination is retarded in the resin and eluted after the product has passed through.

Typical duration: 0–4 months.

Phase 3: Production

When a resin candidate with acceptable performance is established, the resin process is scaled up to enable production at the desired scale, ranging from grams to tonnes. During this process the performance of the material is carefully monitored to be maintained throughout the scale-up. A washing procedure able to reach the agreed limits is developed in parallel.

Scale-up starts with MIP Technologies producing materials in our in-house state-of-the art ISO certified pilot production plant. The final specifications are established in discussion with the customer to meet regulatory requirements.

When the resin is ready to roll out into production process, volumes up to the ton scale may be produced at ISO and GMP compliant polymer production facilities. MIP Technologies takes responsibility for the production and quality assurance of the final product.

The final product may be supplied as bulk material or packed into chromatographic columns with volumes up to 10L.

Typical duration: 0.5–4 months.

Close Collaboration

Throughout the process, MIP Technologies keeps a close collaboration with the customer. The performances of candidate materials are presented to the customer for discussion, and samples are supplied for evaluation after each milestone.

At the end of every module there is a go/no-go decision point, where MIP Technologies delivers a report and an agreed amount of resin for testing and confirmation at the customer’s site. Upon agreement in those meetings, the project will terminated, repeated or proceed to the next phase.

Quality assurance

MIP Technologies works under stringent quality conditions. The company's well equipped QC laboratories ensure high product quality and low batch-to-batch variations. Physical and chemical characteristics as well as performance and cleanliness of the resins are carefully checked and reported with each batch supplied.

Customer support

We offer close customer support. Contact our highly qualified staff about your demanding extractions or separations and let us propose a potential solution.

Confidentiality

MIP Technologies employs a strict confidentiality arrangement with its customers.

Wide Range of Applications

MIP Technologies' process materials can be engineered for an essentially unlimited variety of small and oligomeric molecules. The selectivity can be tuned towards specific molecules or classes of chemically related molecules. Examples of application areas:

• Pharmaceuticals
• Food & Beverage Ingredients
• Chemicals
• Consumer products
• Environmental Contaminants

Contact Us!

To learn more about what MIP Technologies can do to improve your specific process, please contact us at busdev@biotage.com.