Evolved Nanomaterial Sciences enables chiral molecular separations through nanotechnology

Evolved Nanomaterial Sciences (ENS) is a Cambridge-based company that uses nanotechnology to revolutionize the chiral separations essential to the drug development process.

“The future of drug discovery and manufacture rests squarely with chiral therapeutics which represent more than 80 percent of all new drugs in the pipeline,” said ENS CEO Robert Pucciariello. “Yet current methods for chiral separation are slow, unreliable and offer limited scalability for manufacture.”

Using a patented nanotechnology,the company’s HPLC Chiral Columns enable previously unattainable molecular separations by offering unprecedented selectivity and scalability, and dramatically simplifying the research and analysis process. ENS’s forthcoming product line is highly effective at separating a broad spectrum of chiral chemical compounds, including both large and small molecules. It promises to remove much of the current trial and error in chiral chromatography column and condition selection.

Chiral separation is a process by which scientists, particularly in drug development and clinical trials, separate mirror-image molecules: one of which is often therapeutic or beneficial; the other of which can produce unwanted side effects.

The company’s technology has also demonstrated superior performance on low molecular weight compounds. The enabling capabilities of its columns, shorter method development times needed, and higher capacity and throughput in batch chromatography all address critical points in the drug development pipeline, helping to add value and speed new drugs into clinical trials. Most of the top-selling drugs in the world are chiral, including Lipitor®, Nexium® and Viagra®, and already more than 50 percent of current drug sales are from chiral drugs.

ENS’s HPLC column technology was exhibited to more than 20,000 scientific professionals last week at the 57th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy at the Orange County Convention Center Exposition in Orlando, FL.