A chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is helping pharmaceutical companies manufacture drugs locally via the company he co-founded, Snapdragon Chemistry. By producing drugs locally, the company is helping shorten the time it takes drugs to get to patients, according to an article from MIT News.
Manufacturing drugs for clinical trials typically involves international partners and supply chains, according to the article, a system whose vulnerability was revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Snapdragon Chemistry, co-founded by MIT Professor and Associate Provost Tim Jamison and Aaron Beeler, an associate professor of medicinal chemistry at Boston University, essentially “starts as a chemistry lab,” conducting experiments to create molecules of interest on behalf of customers, automating production processes and developing technologies that are largely designed to help companies get through clinical trials more quickly. According to MIT News, Snapdragon Chemistry has worked with more than 100 companies, from small biotechs to large multinationals like Amgen, and research agencies including Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) on a project that involved the building blocks of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines.
Read the entire article here.
