Public examples: academic–industry crystallization and continuous-manufacturing collaborations

From official sources

Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing

Date: 28 Sep 2007 (announcement)[1]

• A 10-year partnership to develop technologies to replace batch-based pharmaceutical production with continuous manufacturing; Novartis was to invest USD 65 million in research at MIT over 10 years.[1]
• Initial research was to run mainly through PhD programmes in MIT laboratories, then transfer to Novartis for industrial-scale development.[1]

Pfizer joins CMAC as a strategic member (directory card)

Date: 18 Dec 2017 (press release)[2]

• Pfizer joined CMAC (Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallisation), a pre-competitive consortium led by the University of Strathclyde, as a strategic member; the CMAC Future Manufacturing Research Hub was one of six EPSRC hubs established in 2017.[2]

CCID: continuous crystallization, isolation and drying (Pfizer, Eli Lilly and SSPC at the University of Limerick) (directory card)

Date: 23 Oct 2019 (SSPC news of its award shortlisting)[4]

• An Enterprise Ireland Innovation Partnership Project; a continuous crystallization process for a Pfizer API was developed on a Lilly lab-scale 2-pot MSMPR rig, then scaled up at Pfizer's Kilo Technology Laboratory with a 95-hour continuous crystallization run.[3]
• SSPC reported the project as shortlisted for Partnership Alliance of the Year at the Irish Pharma Industry Awards.[4]

PharmaSEL-Prosperity Partnership (Eli Lilly and Company with Imperial College London and UCL) (directory card)

Date: 2017 (PharmaSEL set up, per Imperial's page; the Prosperity Partnership's start date is not stated there)[5]

• A business-led programme co-funded by Eli Lilly and Company and EPSRC, with a work package on drug substance crystallisation; it extends PharmaSEL, set up in 2017.[5]

Peer-reviewed papers from these collaborations

• A Structured Approach To Cope with Impurities during Industrial Crystallization Development (directory card)
  Organic Process Research & Development 24(8), 1443–1456 (2020) · doi:10.1021/acs.oprd.0c00166 · CMAC collaboration
  Acknowledgement, quoted from the paper: The authors would like to thank EPSRC, Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Continuous Manufacturing and Crystallization (CMAC) (Grant ref EP/I033459/1) and the CMAC Tier 1 companies GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Bayer AG, Eli Lilly and Company, Takeda, Roche and Pfizer for funding and supporting this work.[6]
• Design of a Combined Modular and 3D-Printed Falling Film Solution Layer Crystallizer for Intermediate Purification in Continuous Production of Pharmaceuticals (directory card)
  Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 60(28), 10276–10285 (2021) · doi:10.1021/acs.iecr.1c00988 · SSPC collaboration
  Acknowledgement, quoted from the paper: This publication was supported by Enterprise Ireland (IP20160474) and Pfizer, Inc., with associated funding from the SSPC, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Pharmaceuticals (12/RC/2275_P2), and I-Form, the Science Foundation Ireland Centre For Advanced manufacturing (16/RC/3872).[7]
• Rapid Assessment of Crystal Nucleation and Growth Kinetics: Comparison of Seeded and Unseeded Experiments (directory card)
  Crystal Growth & Design 23(7), 4779–4790 (2023) · doi:10.1021/acs.cgd.2c01406 · CMAC collaboration
  Acknowledgement, quoted from the paper: The authors would like to acknowledge funding from EPSRC Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallization Future Manufacturing Research Hub (Grant reference: EP/P006965/1) and from GSK.[8]
• Fluid shear driven secondary nucleation using α- and γ-glycine seeds confirmed with rigorous control experiments (directory card)
  CrystEngComm 28(22), 3475–3485 (2026) · doi:10.1039/d6ce00279j · CMAC collaboration
  Acknowledgement, quoted from the paper: The authors would like to acknowledge support from GSK and from the EPSRC Future Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced crystallization Research Hub (grant ref: EP/P006965/1).[9]

Each DOI was resolved on 30 Oct 2026; the acknowledgement is quoted from the paper's full text. No paper from an ETC collaboration is listed: the one candidate found did not name ETC in its acknowledgement or funding lines.