Marseilles-based Provence Technologies (est. 1998) is a fine chemistry research laboratory that offers R&D services to the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, agrochemical and cosmetic industries. The small business also supplies services for the development and validation of analytical methods. Today it is launching a new 1.3 million-euro research program that it is funding 50-50 with OSEO. Called Screening 1000, the two-year program will be looking for and marketing new ultra-pure molecules. Consequently, the company's R&D team will begin by analyzing the one thousand chemical compounds that are already on the market, to detect molecules with purity anomalies. "This approach will clear the way for optimizing an extant collection and lower development costs before marketing," they explained at Provence Technologies.
During the second stage, the R&D department of the company will be focusing on components with the most promising market potential. Provence Technologies will be designing new purification and synthesis approaches that could reach the purity levels required by health regulations. "The innovative aspect of the program is mainly the rollout of new solutions in the fields of active principle purification and alternative synthesis paths," explained Claude Monteils, Corporate In-house R&D Project Coordinator, who recalled that Screening 1000 follows up on the earlier success of methylene blue.