Company profile: Chemists on controlled release

Sarah Houlton raises a water soluble glass to an enthusiastic group of chemists working on novel biomaterials

Scottish biotech firm Giltech, based in Ayr, was set up by former University of Strathclyde academic Tom Gilchrist in 1984 to develop novel biomaterials for medical devices and wound care. Still majority-owned by Gilchrist, the company now has a portfolio of biomaterials and controlled release technologies that enable the accurate and tunable release of a range of substances, such as metal ions.

'It started off as a simple-sounding project to evaluate water-soluble glass,' explains Giltech R&D director David Healy. 'We initially developed the chemistry for an antimicrobial application with an industrial partner, looking at silver ion release from the glass, where the intention was to apply it to urological medical devices. The glass can be designed to dissolve over any period of time - from seconds to years - which we achieve by modifying the formulation.'

The glass manufacturing process is fairly similar to conventional glass manufacture, but no silica is involved - in its simplest form, it is a sodium calcium phosphate. 'That's reminiscent of the composition of bone, which is perhaps why it's so biocompatible,' Healy says. 'It's a more watery material, and it's very aggressive at high temperatures and eats through most conventional furnaces within hours! So we had a lot of development work to do around the process as well as the chemistry itself.'

The product portfolio has grown dramatically. 'We can produce water soluble glasses that don't contain sodium, calcium or phosphorus,' says Healy. 'The fastest dissolves about half a million times faster than the slowest,' he says. 

The company doesn't make its own consumer products. Customers license the technology, use it to make their own products, and pay royalties to Giltech. 'Partners include Covidien and Aspen Medical,' says chief executive Gillian Watson. 'Products on the market using the technology range from wound dressings to coated urinary catheters.'

It hasn't all been plain sailing. 'We were dragged into a court case in the US between two licensees in the early part of this century which slowed us down, even though the case was thrown out. I joined three years ago when it was at rock bottom, but we have definitely now turned the corner.'

Giltech remains small, with a turnover of less than £1 million a year. It has 11 employees, five of whom, including Gilchrist and Healy, are chemists. But this makes for an interesting working life.

Ian Miller started as a chemist at ICI straight from school, and after supervising the demolition of his own plant moved to Giltech 16 years ago. 'My official job title is production manager, but that doesn't take up all my time - I also manage the lab, where we have two technicians involved in development, and analytical work to test the glass we make,' he says. 'The company's origin was in alginates, and its focus moved to soluble glass for a long time, but now we've expanded our brief to cover any aspect of controlled release, so a lot of my work is now in developing controlled release systems using polysaccharides and other gels.'

His colleague, technician Ian West, started working at a local agricultural research unit straight after leaving school in the 1970s. There, he studied chemistry ONC and HNC via day release. He joined Giltech three years ago when the unit closed, and now spends his days in the lab working on both qualitative analysis and product development. 'One of the things I'm involved in is making glass fibre for different medical and pharmaceutical purposes,' he says. 'I'm also involved with the director of science, trying to develop new products. It's very enjoyable and varied, and I was fortunate to be able to turn my interest in science when I was young into an interesting career.'

Miller estimates that 70 per cent of his time is still spent doing hands-on chemistry. 'It isn't something you're going to get bored at - there's something different every day, and I can't think of any days when I didn't enjoy what I do,' he says. 'Yes, there's a lot of pressure at times to meet deadlines, but there's also a lot of satisfaction when customers say we've given them exactly what they want. There's nothing more exciting than a customer wanting to talk about how to put something into production! It's great when a piece of inspiration on the bench turns out to be exactly what we were looking for.'

Sarah Houlton is a freelance writer based in London, UK