Averica specializes in separations for drug discovery projects. We use a variety of approaches to purify and characterize small molecule leads, but our core technology is Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC).

SFC is a highly efficient separations technology. Comparable to normal phase HPLC but providing much greater selectivity and speed, SFC is particularly important in difficult separations - such as the resolution of enantiomers.

About 80% pharmaceuticals are chiral, and within the last ten years the number of new drugs approved as single enantiomers exceeds those approved as racemates by 3:1. Often one enantiomer is inactive or toxic, while the other has the desirable activity. The FDA requires evaluation of each stereoisomer as part of the drug development process, but modern drug discovery project teams often prefer to work with purified enantiomers as they work to understand pharmacology of lead candidates prior to development.

The links to the right will help shed light on the nature of SFC and its applications with chiral and achiral molecules, and (eventually) on research taking place at Averica to extend the value of this technology.

So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, fail'd, and agoniz'd
With widening retrospect that bred despair.

- George Eliot, "The Choir Invisible"