Grant: Alliance Grants

The partnership between BioVectra Inc. and Prof. André B. Charette-Université de Montréal is a milestone towards an in-house Canadian manufacturing of high quality compounds in order to meet an increasing Canadian market demand. This approach will allow to mitigate Canada's heavy reliance on foreign suppliers and hence empower the Canadian economy and health care system. Specifically, the goal of this partnership is to develop an efficient synthetic route under continuous flow conditions to manufacture and supply on demand the two advanced intermediates, olivetol and p-menthadienol in order to make highly pure cannabidiol (CBD). These two precursors are very expensive and are currently supplied from China. A cost analysis has shown that if the costs of production of these two advanced intermediates are decreased, the cost of a 100% Canadian-made CBD would be favorably compete with its current price. The optimal synthetic procedure using continuous flow techniques will be develop within the Center for Continuous Flow Synthesis (CCFS), a state of the art laboratory located at Université de Montréal. The optimized process will then be effectively transfer to BioVectra's continuous flow large scale manufacturing facility for mass production and market distribution of CBD. This partnership is a turn-key solution to rapidly, safely and effectively supply the North American market with this important API. Through this partnership, trainees will gain experience in solving real world problems and well thought after pluri-disciplinary knowledge that will promote their successful entrance in the work force.