"SmartChem has allowed my colleagues and I to target specific companies and identify new worldwide opportunities to grow our business. It has also helped increase the effectiveness of my prospecting visits.”

- Robert Byron, Business Development Manager, Tosoh USA, Inc.

"ROW2’s RouteDesign report gave us novel synthetic routes suitable for commercial scale that we had not considered before, and therefore, added to our team's knowledge. We would definitely use this service again. "

- Head of Process Research at Altana Pharma AG.

Welcome to CI2E Quarterly! ROW2 Technologies is delighted to bring you the first issue of 2008.

The CI2E Quarterly connects with over 5000 key industry professionals from over 900 companies spanning across 25 countries every quarter. Business Development, Sourcing and R&D professionals from Life Sciences and Chemical industries appreciate CI2E as a true Compendium of Information, Interaction and Entertainment!.

In this issue:

• ROW2 World: Updates on ROW2 and its offerings.

• Featured Article: Complying with REACH: Time is running out

• Interesting Links: Links to various interesting articles.

• My Forum: An insight into the 10th Annual Chemical Weekly Business Outlook Conference.

• Entertainment: Filled with excitement and humor, along with a chance to win prizes!

ROW2 World- Quarter 1 highlights:

ROW2 News

2007 was an interesting year for ROW2. One of its key services, SmartChem, celebrated 5 successful years of servicing the industry. ROW2 celebrated this momentous occasion with the SmartChem 5 Year Jubilee. ROW2’s other flagship service, RouteDesign, received great customer appreciation and adoption. ROW2 signed long-term agreements with three major Life Sciences companies. ROW2 also received media recognition and was featured in a few of the top Life Sciences publications worldwide.

We have a clear agenda to increase our offerings, strengthen relationships and add value to all our customers and prospects. We look forward to your continued patronage and support.

• Successful Press Conference: ROW2 held a press conference at Informex USA titled “Pharmaceutical Licensing: Challenges from a synthetic view.” ROW2’s Vice-President Process Chemistry Solutions, Joseph D’Antuono, Ph.D. shared his views on overcoming licensing challenges with respect to process scalability. We wish to thank all our press partners for their encouraging feedback and appreciation. Read more on this Press Conference here.

• Informex 2008: ROW2 exhibited at Informex USA 2008 (booth # 747) for the seventh year in succession. This year, as a part of Jubilee celebration, SmartChem introduced the SmartChem Live, where attendees got an opportunity to use SmartChem to search for their chemical needs. SmartChem Live got an overwhelming response and the offer had to be extended by an additional day to satisfy the number of attendees availing themselves of the offer. The SmartChem Live users included both existing customers and many companies new to the SmartChem experience. We thank all the attendees for making SmartChem Live a grand success. ROW2’s booth was visibly “Lively” with attendees participating in many events and contests that were organized. ROW2 also featured in two of the three Informex Show Daily publications. We thank the Organizers of Informex to repose confidence in our offerings and our viewpoints. Read the Show Daily article “SmartChem – the complete Sourcing Solution” here; also read the article “ROW2 Technologies Pharmaceutical Licensing: Challenges from a Synthetic View” here.
  

• Upcoming Events: ROW2 will be present at CPhI Tokyo on April 9-11, 2008 in Japan and Chemspec India on April 9 -10, 2008 in Mumbai.
  
  

SPECIAL DISCOUNT OFFER – Register for the Chemical Weekly Business Outlook Conference by quoting ROW2 in your registration form and avail a Special 15% Discount per registration!!!

• Events: ROW2 was a Silver Sponsor to the conference “Developing Chemical Processes for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients” organized by Scientific Update in India in February 2008.
  
  

• Webseminar 2008: ROW2 has been hosting interesting webseminars for the past three years on key topics shaping the industry. We invite you to be a speaker at ROW2’s Webseminar scheduled for 2008. Send us an email on topics of your interest for the upcoming webseminars. View our previous webseminars here.
  
  

SmartChem News

• SmartChem 5 Years Jubilee Finale: ROW2 moves into its sixth year of SmartChem and officially concludes the SmartChem 5 Years Jubilee Celebration with the Jubilee Finale. The 2007 celebration received immense participation from our customers and industry colleagues for various initiatives. The Finale celebration too is packed with various offers and programs
  
  Contact us to know more about the Finale offer.

• SmartChem Enhancements:
  
  Key enhancements slated for 2008:
  
  

  • Online After Sales Assistant: This user-friendly feature will allow you to send your After Sales requests at the click of a button. We thank all our Expert Panel Members who have validated this new feature.
    
  • DMF/VMF Status: Suppliers section in SmartChem will soon be enriched with DMF/VMF status.
    
  • Company-wise product list: SmartChem will shortly be enhanced with the supplier-wise product list.
    
  • Other 2008 enhancements: SmartChem Usability enhancement, Customized landing page, Priority Listing and many more.
    
    

• Expert Panel Membership: Customers can now evaluate all of SmartChem’s upcoming enhancements in 2008 as part of an expert evaluation panel. Contact here for the membership details.
  
  
  

RouteDesign News

RouteDesign continues to be the flagship offering of ROW2. A growing number of companies are employing RouteDesign to speed up development process, reduce costs, reduce number of steps in their syntheses, eliminate hazardous chemicals, adopt greener chemistries and above all to effectively use their most productive resource, namely the Scientists! Today RouteDesign is used by companies in the Chemical and Life Sciences industries including virtual companies as well as small, medium and large Pharmaceutical Companies.

• Expanding horizons: Many companies have incorporated RouteDesign and its variants in their workflow for in-licensed and out-licensed molecules. For our customers, their in-Licensing and out-licensing candidates now need to pass a RouteDesign Evaluation Test for Scalability before they progress further in the value chain. The year 2007 also saw the adoption of RouteDesign at the Preclinical stage where companies aimed at merging the two critical activities of route Synthesis at the Med Chem stage and at the process development stage in order to channel resources and of course to save time and costs.
  
  Find out how companies are eliminating wasteful costs, reducing duplication of work, reducing the risk associated with in-licensing molecules using RouteDesign through our interesting case Studies. ASK FOR YOUR COPY TODAY.
  
  
• Speaking opportunities: Last year, ROW2 was invited to share its thoughts with industry colleagues at the Mastering Process Chemistry Conference in Philadelphia and the Global Pharma R&D Summit in Boston. ROW2 is always willing to share its views, market research findings on array of interesting and intriguing topics with the industry.
  
  

  Important Events: March’08 to May’08

  April:
  7-9   : Bio Europe Spring: Madrid, Spain
  6-10 : American Chemical Society Annual Meeting
  9-10 : Chemspec India: Mumbai
  9-11 : CPhI Japan: Tokyo
  14-16: LogiChem Europe: Dusseldorf, Germany
  22-25: LogiPharma Europe: Geneva, Switzerland
  

  May:
  12-14: WorldPharma Congress: PA, USA
  21-23: MSM & Chiral Europe: Algarve, Portugal
  27-30: Chemexpo 08: Budapest, Hungary
  

Featured Article

The deadline for beginning to comply with the first phase of the new European chemicals legislation, REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals) is fast approaching. Time is running out and fast. The window for pre-registration of products opens on July 1, 2008 only to close in just six months.

To read the full article click here

Interesting Links

World Chemical Outlook 2008: For Markets: USA, Europe, Asia-Pacific
Published in: C&E News – Jan 14, 2008 issue

This interesting read gives an insight into the chemical industry and what’s expected in the year 2008. The region wise analysis gives complete and updated scenario for the industry.

Befriending Enemies:
Published in: Express Pharma Online

Learn how ‘Innovator’ pharmaceutical companies are adopting different ways of fighting their traditional enemies – generics companies in this fascinating article.

Managing Risks in Pharmaceutical Outsourcing:
Published in: Specialty Chemicals Magazine in November 2007

A great article that shares tools to help manage risks and improve lead-times in pharmaceutical outsourcing.

Featured Article Cont'd.

The deadline for pre-registering compounds is important as it provides chemical suppliers as much as ten years to comply with the provisions of the legislation and submit the requisite safety and risk assessments that will enable the European Chemical Agency, set up in Helsinki, to register the product. Importantly, the law provides for companies to continue to do business in the intervening period in a business as usual scenario.

The exact length of the grace period available will depend on the usage level of the product in question. For example, products used in levels in excess of 1,000-tons or above annually will need to be evaluated for their safety and hazard potential by the end of 2011, which means they need the fastest evaluation of their safety due their relatively large volumes and hence exposure at the hands of the user. Similarly, products used at an intervening scale of 10-tons to 1,000-tons annually would need a complete evaluation by mid-2013, while those used at the smallest level of 1-100-tons annually would need complete dossier filing only by the middle of 2018. Substances that are used at a level of less than 1-ton annually are thankfully exempted from the provisions of REACH.

Although it would be theoretically possible to file for registration subsequent to the closure of the pre-registration window, in practice this would be an arduous one and best not attempted.

Wide range of products covered:

The range of chemicals that will be covered by the legislation is vast and includes everything from discrete organic and inorganic compounds, metals, alloys, minerals, colourants, additives etc. What are not covered (with important caveats) are polymers, pharmaceuticals (APIs and formulations), agrochemicals and products such as biocides and food additives (which are covered adequately by separate legislation). Importantly for the fine chemical industry, transported process intermediates are out of the purview of REACH, provided they are manufactured and used under carefully controlled conditions and find no alternate use aside chemical conversion to an alternate chemical identity. In case these conditions are not fulfilled (which must be adequately proven), the full registration requirements will apply.

Due to the all-encompassing scope of the legislation, companies must urgently and minutely examine current and planned product portfolios for compliance requirements.

Options for registering companies:

The matter is however, complicated as the pre-registration (and subsequent registration procedures) can only be handled by an entity registered in the European Union (EU-25). This essentially poses three options to the registering entity: set up a European legal entity to handle the process of registration; request a customer to do the same; or appoint an Only Representative (OR) as a nominee to act on one’s behalf with the regulatory authorities.

The choice of one among these options needs to be done by closely weighing the pros and cons.

REACH will clearly alter the portfolio of products that will be permitted to be sold in the EU. It is also possible that the rest of the developed world will fall in line once a product is outlawed in the EU. Where possible, it is expected that safer alternatives will evolve. Where such a substitution is not possible, it will provide a comprehensive assessment of risk, exposure and hazard, which will have to be minimized by adequate techniques in manufacture, handling, transportation, use and disposal. Either way, doing business in the shadow of REACH will be quite unlike now.

To comply with this legislation there is much industry will have to do. A supportive government will help as time is running out for complying with REACH.

Some countries are very active on this front. For example, Chinese authorities are setting up a liaison office in Helsinki where the European Chemical Agency is located; setting standards for testing for local companies to comply with, etc. While it is still too early to gauge the impact that this has had on the Chinese producers, this is a model that is well worth examining in much closer detail.

About the author-Mr. Ravi Raghavan

Mr. Ravi Raghavan is the Editor of "Chemical Weekly", one of the most widely circulated and reputed chemical publications, and Director of the Chemical Weekly Database P. Ltd. He is involved in extensive reporting of activities in the chemical industry and hence has an in-depth understanding of the complexities of this industry.

He also heads the team of researchers that provide market assessment and entry-level strategies for companies looking to invest in the Indian chemical industry.

He has received his Bachelor of Science (Technology) from Bombay UDCT in India and his M.S. in Polymer Science from Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA.

Contacts: ravi@chemicalweekly.com - www.chemicalweekly.com

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The two-day event, addressed by senior executives from the chemical industry, will look at opportunities, challenges and strategies covering Organic and Inorganic chemicals, Petrochemicals, Fine & Specialty chemicals.

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Chemistry Word Jumble:

Unscramble the name of this organic reaction!

“LECTARFFEDRIS” Reaction

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