In addition to supplying the traditional pharmaceutical and agrochemical markets, Fine Organics custom manufactures specialty chemicals for companies across the non-life science sector, such as electronics and materials science.

The quality requirements in these industries are no less demanding, and a very high chemical purity is often required.

Confidentiality and protection of Intellectual Property are vital in the specialties market, where our customers’ formulations and product compositions are often proprietary.

As a privately-owned, single-site company based exclusively in the UK, and with a low staff turnover, Fine Organics is an especially safe location for our customers’ IP.

All our business takes place under secrecy agreement.

During development of new molecules for new applications, timelines are challenging, with funding decisions made at very short notice.

We can progress to pilot scale safely and quickly and we also offer small scale manufacture to simulate commercial scale processes, and to provide “proof of concept” material.

Fine Organics has six labs which are fully equipped to carry out process development work, together with safety studies.

All standard equipment is available, backed up by specialist items (Mettler LabMax reactors, distillation units, autoclaves, multi-unit reactors) and this is supported by small-scale production equipment (100 - 450 litre vessels) to carry out the initial scale-up. The Development department has its own analytical equipment (HPLC, GC etc) to monitor lab runs and to support new method development.

Although the prime focus of the Development group is to optimise customers’ processes, we also investigate alternative processing routes and changes of reagents or solvents, as requested by our customers.

The aim is to ensure that the process ultimately operated on the plant is safe, robust, and economic.

We are proud of our track record in process scale-up, and can often omit a “piloting” exercise if project timelines require a rapid progression from the lab to full-scale manufacture.

Over 30 years, Fine Organics has built up a portfolio of commercial-scale chemical synthesis skills and assets which combined with a broad operating permit under IPPC regulations, enable a fast and efficient response to our customers’ needs.

50 reactors in 4 production buildings have individual capacities from 100 litres to 20m3 and are typically operate from -30 °C to +150 °C. (Certain vessels can operate outside this range.)

Our reactors are mainly Hastelloy or glass-lined steel to allow operations over a wide pH range.

Specialised equipment includes continuous processing capabilities in photochemistry and vapour phase reductions, and a production scale ozone generator.

Solids are isolated and dried in centrifuges and cone, paddle and filter dryers. These are in Hastelloy, glass-lined steel, polymer-lined steel and stainless steel. Distillation & fractionation capacity is provided by glass-lined, glass and Hastelloy batch stills, and by wiped film evaporators.

New markets are by definition difficult to predict. We work closely with our clients to minimise the impact of unfavourable changes in demand, and to maximise any opportunity for upside variances. If large product volumes are needed, we have an established line of credit for funding capacity expansion, thus avoiding delays to the project timetable.

All products face price pressure at some point in their lifecycle, however, we work with our customers to remain competitive throughout.

Once the business is established, Fine Organics will commit resources in order to reduce the cost of manufacture, through our Continuous Improvement programme.

Structured data collection and evaluation techniques; such as value stream mapping and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE); are routinely employed at Fine Organics to eliminate process wastes in materials, labour and time.

It is our policy to ensure that all products sold are tailored to meet the customer’s specific quality requirements.

To achieve this standard, the company maintains, improves and operates a prescribed Quality Management System which satisfies quality assurance not only as defined in ISO 9001:2008, but also according to pharmaceutical current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP).

Owing to our long history in cGMP manufacturing, more stringent quality levels beyond ISO 9000 can also be applied to non-life science products.

If a customer has special requirements, for example relating to raw material release, traceability or process change control, these can easily be accommodated within our existing quality systems.