FLAMAC has already successfully collaborated with a substantial number of small, medium and large size companies. In fact, we can help you conduct 3 different ways of contract research:
1. Feasibility studies and short test campaigns
An increasing number of companies wants to evaluate the use of automated and high-throughput experimentation in their research programs as an alternative to their in-house manual experimentation. FLAMAC executes a feasibility study first to reduce the risk of the switch from manual to automated testing. This evaluation consists of a limited set of experiments on the existing high-throughput equipment at FLAMAC. If needed, the existing equipment workflows can be adapted according to customer needs. Typically, a feasibility study can run from one week to a couple of months, depending upon the adaptations needed.
In addition, our existing automated characterisation tools can be used to efficiently measure a batch series of samples.
2. Extended test campaigns
Every year FLAMAC conducts a significant number of extended design-of-experiments campaigns, enabling customers to speed up their new product and process development, and consequently shorten time-to-market. After the feasibility has been proven, the high-throughput platforms and/or high-throughput characterisation tools can be used to synthesise, formulate, apply and evaluate different combinations of ingredients, processing parameters and usage conditions. Typically these extended test campaigns can run from one up to several months, depending upon the testing intensity and frequency.
3. Long-term contract research
A number of companies have strategically decided to outsource part or even all of their high-throughput experimentation work to FLAMAC. We can provide them services in the field of high-throughput synthesis and formulation research, stability screening and coating applications. Furthermore, we are able to custom design new features and build those into existing or new high-throughput platforms. We hereby act as the system-architect and integrator, unbiased towards the suppliers. Typically long-term collaboration agreements run over a number of years and therefore special conditions are applicable for our long-term contract research partners.
For all executed tests, a unique sample barcode labelling system is in place in order to have full traceability and virtually connect all executed testing conditions and results across the different testing units. The testing data and results always belong to the customer; FLAMAC will not claim IP on the results, and can further help to interpret the generated dataset with advanced data analytics and visualisation methods.