[Liftoff #6] Securing European Horizon funding

Evelina Colacino is a teacher-researcher at the Charles Gerhadt Institute in Montpellier. Using mechanochemistry, she is working to produce molecules of pharmaceutical interest more ecologically, economically and efficiently. In 2022, the researcher was awarded 7.7 million euros in European Horizon funding, and she tells us all about it in the Décollage series proposed by the University of Montpellier's Department of Innovation and Partnerships (Dipa).

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most polluting activities on the planet, with a carbon footprint larger than that of the automotive sector. To reduce this environmental impact, Evelina Colacino, a chemist at the Charles Gerhardt Institute, proposes mechanochemistry. This is a technology that frees us from the solvents used in traditional chemistry to synthesize the molecules of pharmaceutical interest that are the active ingredients of our medicines. Although this technology is already used by other industrial sectors, the IMPACTIVE project (innovative mechanochemical processes to synthesize green active pharmaceutical ingredients) is the first to apply it to the pharmaceutical industry.

Led by the University of Montpellier, this project brings together 17 partners - including universities, research laboratories and the Merck and Novartis companies - and is coordinated by chemist Evelina Colacino of the the Charles Gerhardt Institute in Montpellier. With the support of Dipa, Europe has granted 7.7 million euros in funding to the researcher and her consortium to develop this promising technology for a wide range of fields. 

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