DOI 10.1515/gps-2012-0078 Green Process Synth 2012; 1: 539–541 Network profile Steve Lanners* , Edith Norrant and Patrick Pasau The LEGOMEDIC consortium *Corresponding author: Steve Lanners, Department of Chemistry, – UCB Pharma is a global biopharmaceutical company University of Namur, 61 rue de Bruxelles, 5000 Namur, Belgium, with operations in about 40 countries and which e-mail:
[email protected] had a global revenue of $ 3.2 billion in 2011 [ 2 ]. Its Edith Norrant and Patrick Pasau: UCB Pharma S.A., Chemin du research efforts focus on severe diseases, mainly in Foriest, 1420 Braine-l ’ Alleud, Belgium the field of CNS affections and immunology, using both chemistry and biology as driving forces for the development of new drugs. UCB Pharma has 1 Objectives of the consortium extensive experience in medicinal chemistry, process chemistry and manufacturing, including the research The initial idea for the LEGOMEDIC project took shape in use of continuous and microfluidic techniques for 2009, when scientists from UCB Pharma (Braine-l ’ Alleud, flow chemistry and wants to expand the latter to Belgium) decided to join forces with a group of smaller pilot and manufacturing scales. companies and research groups from universities in the – The Laboratory of Synthetic Organic Chemistry Wallonia and Brussels areas of Belgium, in order to study (COS), at the University of Namur, contributes the applicability of microreactor technology and con- its experience in asymmetric synthesis and flow tinuous processes to the manufacturing of active