SME of the Month February - Prosonix Ltd.

Main activities of the company 

Prosonix are world leaders in the commercialization of proprietary added value ultrasonic process solutions and encompass the nanotechnology, particle engineering and process intensification fields by the application of Ultrasound at commercial scale.  These include sonocrystallization, sonochemistry and sonoprocessing.

Total number of people employed

9 people full time employed, 5 chemists, 4 chemical engineers

Company start date

January 17th 2006

Company history 

Prosonix originated from AEA Technology and was formerly known as C3 Technology, part of Accentus plc. In October 2005 Coller Capital the world's largest secondary private equity house based in London bought 9 businesses from AEAT, including Accentus.

The long held ambition of the current directors, lead by David Hipkiss, CEO, was to have an independent business focused in commercial scale ultrasonic chemistry, and with the assistance of Coller, that ambition was fulfilled with Prosonix being established in January 2006, and began trading on 31 March 2006.  The small team is managed by its Directors in accordance with its business plan at arms length from its investor.

To get access to laboratory space the Directors reviewed available space in the Oxford area, and decided that the OSP facilities were the best fit for the business in its current state.  The facilities were then customized to meet our needs.

The main obstacle to our growth was overcome by forming Prosonix Ltd.  Autonomy has brought significant ease of operation and we now need to deliver on the last few years of latent potential.  Our business model is also evolving to accelerate adoption of the technology.

The key activities starting and growing the company

Based in Oxford UK, our team of chemists and engineers work together to give Prosonix a unique multidisciplinary approach to solving our customers complex problems, leveraging our proprietary intellectual property and patented bespoke sonoprocessing equipment for cost effective mutual advantage. 
Our core markets to date are Pharmaceuticals, and Minerals Processing, where we employ our technology for the Complete Crystallization Control T of our customer's products, processes and unit operations. 
Prosonix have 3 core technologies that are available to our customers. 
 
ProsonitronTM Reactors for commercial scale sonoprocessing activities such as crystallization control, particle size control, sonochemistry, sonoprocessing, sonocatalysis, sonobiocatalysis and polymorphic control.  Uniquely these are proven across scale and are used in both cGMP and ATEX (explosion proof) environments.

SAXTM - Solution Atomization Crystallization by Sonication. This is a unique particle engineering technology that represents a paradigm shift in inhaled drug delivery. SAX offers customers the ability to produce 100% crystalline particles with no amorphous content within the size range of 500nm to 6 microns. SAX also offers the opportunity to deliver dual and triple therapies through highly advanced combination particles produced in correct dose ratios within one crystal moiety. By controlling Size, Shape, Surface energy and Surface properties a truly bespoke and advance particle engineering solution has been created. This technology has been exclusively licensed from the University of Bath and Rob Price a consultant of Prosonix is the inventor.

CrystalGEMTM - A unique predictive crystallization screening technology that can predict morphology and habit of crystals obtained from solvent/antisolvent combinations via a bespoke pattern recognition and algorithmic calculation system. This can rapidly speed up crystallization optimization screening and enhance IP on polymorph data capture. This technology is delivered as collaboration between Prosonix and Chiralabs, with Dr George Tranter who is a consultant of ours. 

We also have a growing number of strategic partnerships with a range of leading academic institutions and technology partners which places Prosonix firmly at the cutting edge of the next generation of commercial scale ultrasonic process intensification solutions.  These include Universities at Bath, Coventry, and Leeds in the UK, the National Physics Laboratory, and Scientific Update and Sonic Systems Ltd. 

Company finance

The business plan was created by the Directors, reviewed and approved by the Investor.  This is reviewed monthly.  Our IP falls into 3 patent families and we have 15 patents at various stages from application through to full grant.  We protect core background IP widely, and specific process patents according to their application.

Prosonix use a matrix approach to marketing including direct sales, smart web presence including portals, trade shows, symposia, sponsorship, and a select amount of paid space advertising.  We are also use press releases and testimonials in a targeted manner.  Pertinent examples include of deal announcements with UCB Pharma, Alcoa, Aughinish Alumina, and the University of Bath.

What the future holds

For certain we will be bigger than we are.  This year we are set to treble sales revenue and have doubled the size of our Oxford team.  We will continue our focus into pharmaceuticals and address other non pharma opportunities (e.g. our alumina project) in a pragmatic and project specific way.