Projects

ANTI-INFECTIVE PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCT

Sector: Pharmaceuticals
Description: A major improvement using a novel approach on existing anti-infective drug that sells $2.2 billion/year in market.
Greater bioavailability and higher absorption with significantly lower side effects such as nausea, vomiting, headache, etc have been achieved.

This unique product is addressing serious and critical parameters such as higher safety profile of the drug administered, better patient compliance, and less expensive end product because less drug is needed to produce the same therapeutic effect.

Current status of the invention:
Prototype is successfully developed.
Technology patent is being filed.
Feasibility study is also developed.
Two products in form of tablet and suspension is being developed and scaled up to commercial scale.
Human bioavailability (clinical) trial will be conducted.

Remaining tasks:
Development of the pharmaceutical product/technology to large scale.

Human bioavailability studies and regulatory application if we decide to introduce the product to the market under our name. If we decide to outsource the product then aggressive business development and licensing our deals through strategic partnerships.

Current Investment:
Around $150,000

Investment needs:
$250,000 - 950,000

Investment return:
Investment IRR = 120%

Estimated annual revenue:
$100 million by year 5 from licensing and development

Potential markets:
Potential market for the drug we are developing is about $2.2 billion worldwide. The novel drug delivery system that we are using with this drug could be applicable to a family of other drugs which effectively means the potential market will be enormously higher than we anticipate.

FORMULATION AND PRODUCTION OF A DRUG FROM A JORDANIAN MEDICINAL PLANT

Sector: Pharmaceuticals
Description: The hydro-alcohol extract of a Jordanian medicinal plant has been obtained and standardized according to the presence of the major active constituent. The following formula ( Liquid Dosage Form) developed:

• Standardized plant extract
• Salicylic acid
• Propylene glycol (as a vehicle)
• Possible to add Zinc ( as Zinc fluoride or Zinc Chloride)

Current status of the invention:
The active constituents have been isolated and the extract of the plant was standardized according to the major compound.

Different studies were carried out (Microbiological Study, Microbiological Assay, Acute and Prolonged Toxicity, Liver Toxicity, Validation Report and Accelerated Stability Studies Report).

Remaining tasks: Clinical Trials, and pharmaceutical business development for Phase 2 and Phase 3 according the international regulations.
Marketing and licensing of the drug to a pharmaceutical company.

Current Investment:
Around $ 75,000

Investment needs:
$ 0.5 million USD

Investment return:
Investment IRR= 65%

Estimated annual revenue:
$6 million 5 years after regulatory approval from development, registration and royalties.

Potential markets:

• to treat sore gums and mouth ulcers
• to treat oral infection disease like dental caries and periodontitis.
• to possible treatment of oral aphthous.

International Pharmaceutical Companies sold millions of USD annually, by selling similar products.

InChemTech Research:

Cleaning up with fuel cells
InChemTech researchers have developed a fuel cell that not only generates electricity in an environment friendly way but also treats waste water. The team have developed a microbial fuel cell that works differently from other fuel cells of its type. A carbon-based foam is used with a large pore size on which biofilm grows, allowing to connect two electrodes in the anode and cathode chambers with a conductive wire. The fuel cell is doing basically the same thing as a standard hydrogen fuel cell except that the bacteria on the anode act as the catalyst instead of platinum. The producing energy from wastewater should be a high international priority because of population growth and worldwide depletion of energy resources.

Ionic Liquids
Cheap and clean alternatives to volatile organic solvents (VOCs) are at last proving their credentials. Room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are attracting keen interest in academic research laboratories but have until now struggled to enter the industrial mainstream. InChemTech has developed processes that use ionic liquids. Researchers are now focusing their efforts on how to ensure that ionic liquids really are safe for the environment and human health. Researchers, for instance, developed an ionic liquid that is biodegradable. "Ionic liquids are not intrinsically green; we have to design them to be green".

Catalytic revelations
A mechanistic study of one of the most important industrial reactions, hydroformylation, is providing new understanding of the process. The InChemTech team carrying out the work has used an NMR approach to detect products through signals that are 30,000 times stronger than usual. To help them work out the details of how metal catalysts work in detail. Researchers: "The rewards of achieving a greater understanding of such mechanisms are dramatic, leading to significant improvements in atom efficiency and hence fulfilling the chemist's desire to make a positive contribution to today's greener world".

Storing sunlight
InChemTech researchers have developed a novel solar cell that produces electricity from sunlight as normal but can also store this energy without the need for a battery. It could revolutionize portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones and other hand-held devices, allowing users to charge up the device even on cloudy days. The photocapacitor uses a unique combination of materials. A light-absorbing photoelectrode made of titanium dioxide is kept separate from a platinum-coated glass counterelectrode by a resin film. Additionally, both electrodes include a porous carbon layer filled with electrolyte. The titanium dioxide generates the charge which is then stored by the electrolyte on the large surface area of the porous carbon.

Chemicals in a spin
Molecules that can act as rotors could be the key to making sub-microscopic machines, according to nanotechnologists. InChemTech have developed a new type of molecular rotor that resembles a toy gyroscope. The researchers used a relatively simple synthetic technique to build their rotor constructing a fixed fastening unit and a rotating component. The rotating axis spins within a fixed housing consisting of three circular spokes. The rotor could be set spinning by an electric field mimicking the almost frictionless spin of a gyroscope.

New Generation of Porous Materials
An InChemTech collaboration with leading researchers could lead to a new generation of porous materials to complement the zeolites. Rather than being based on conventional inorganic salts, however, the materials will be based on peptides. Research have turned to oligomeric peptides as alternative building blocks for porous organic materials. Many peptides have a natural hosting capacity for smaller guest molecules making them perhaps the ideal candidate for creating functional porous materials.

Strong and gentle Acid
InChemTech scientists have invented the world's strongest acid. The carborane acid is effectively a million times as good at donating its proton as sulfuric acid, but because the residual boron-carbon anion itself is so stable it does not then react readily with other materials so is non-corrosive. The previous record holder fluorosulfuric acid was strong but also highly corrosive and eats through glass reaction vessels. The carborane super acid delivers "clean acidity without ferocity".

Crystal sandwich
The first X-ray structure of a protein adduct of a half-sandwich ruthenium-arene complex could pave the way to a new class of hybrid catalyst. InChemTech research group has built adducts starting from various ruthenium complexes and the single chain protein lysozyme and carried out a crystallographic analysis that shows the resulting structure in fine detail. They explain that ruthenium arene binds selectively to the imidazole ring of the only histidine amino acid in the protein chain and results in the formation of a water-repelling, hydrophobic, binding pocket around the ruthenium. Such a site could provide the starting point for a new class of catalyst, explain the researchers. They add that ruthenium arene complexes also have anticancer activity so obtaining a clearer picture of their binding sites to proteins could provide new clues to how they work and perhaps lead to more effective derivatives.

Protopolymers
This research have discovered a new chemical state they dub a protopolymer. The researchers laid out chains of phenylene monomers on a crystalline copper surface at low temperature and found that the monomers begin to align and link together. Pairing of molecules has been reported before, but this is the first time extended chains of molecules have been found to interact on a surface in this way. Inevitably, the discovery will have implications for controlling the growth of structures on surfaces with potential applications in nanoscience.