Green chemistry could make cancer drugs cleaner to produce, firm tells NEC science show

A British life science company is betting that "green chemistry", cleaner ways of making medicines without highly toxic solvents, could change how cancer drugs are manufactured, and it used a Birmingham trade show to look for partners.

Speaking at Lab Innovations, held alongside Advanced Engineering at the NEC on 4 and 5 November, Fluid Life Science business development manager Eyong Egbe said the company is building a cancer drug discovery platform to bring promising university research closer to the clinic. His interview was published by Brum News on 11 November.

From university lab to clinic

"We are building an oncology drug discovery platform that highlights the incredible research some UK universities are doing, and brings it onto a platform that could create value for the future," Mr Egbe said.

At the centre of the work is a partnership with De Montfort University in Leicester. In 2025 the university and Fluid Science won Innovate UK funding for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership worth just over £300,000, to develop a new generation of anti-cancer compounds using green chemistry. The team is working on DMU212, an open-source anti-cancer compound developed at the university.

What green chemistry does

Green chemistry removes highly toxic solvents from the reactions used to make the active ingredients in medicines, cutting waste and environmental impact. According to the university, the cleaner methods are also intended to lower costs, so that potential treatments could reach more patients.

"We think green chemistry is going to be big for companies in the near future," Mr Egbe said. The company now wants to work with drug developers whose active ingredients it could assess and manufacture using the same approach. Its project was nominated at the Lab Innovations awards. "We didn't win, but being nominated means it's recognised as a significant project in terms of innovation," he said.

An important caveat

DMU212 is an experimental compound at the research stage. It is not an approved medicine and is not available as a treatment, and the company's claims have not been independently evaluated by regulators. Anyone affected by cancer should take advice from a qualified healthcare professional.

Partnership at the heart of it

Mr Egbe said close collaboration with universities sets the company apart. "We see them as our partners. Our main objective is to take their work from just research to something productive in society, getting it into clinical development."

Fluid Life Science is a division of Fluid Science Ltd, whose brands supply ultra-pure water, medical diagnostic products and laboratory chemicals. It also supplies enzymes and reagents to research laboratories, with an aim of quality at affordable prices. "We understand the pain and stress it takes in the lab to do the work they do," said Mr Egbe, himself a scientist.

The NEC's science and engineering shows bring researchers and manufacturers from across the country to Birmingham, and stories like this one show how a conversation on a stand can be the start of a path from the lab bench towards patients.