Offering creative and productive solutions through professional and in-house analytical services: Orochem

All around the world, the pharmaceutics and drug industry has grown from a small cubicle into one of the most developed industries. The industry has made a major contribution to human well-being and helped in the process of reduction of ill health, physical and mental sufferings. But it saw many failures as not every company which invested in providing good health is equipped with the right kind of technology. The most important pothole is the financial support. Observing this, a company named Orochem was established as the drug discovery market was in need of reliable technology and tools.

Orochem’s is globally recognized as an organization that conceives, develops, and installs some of the most technologically viable solutions for “highest purities” for industrial or “metric ton” scale purification for API’s, nutritional supplements, fatty acids, and specialty sugars. Orochem provides Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) Chromatography technology for the laboratory scale, pilot scale and large-scale purification of commercially viable molecules for its customers around the world.

Knocking on the company’s door

In the year 1996, Dr. Asha Oroskar along with Dr. Anil Oroskar founded Orochem Technologies Inc as a Biotech and Chromatography company with the aim to manufacture unique Sample Prep Technology Products for the Bioanalysis, Drug Discovery, and the Genomics and Proteomics markets.

Backed with unique expertise in high throughput formats, membranes and surface chemistries, Orochem became one of the first companies to translate the concept of pre-filters from single to high throughput formats, a concept now widely implemented for sample prep plates in the biotech and analytical markets. The founders had to make sure that the product offerings were allowing array of products even though it started with sample prep products as it was dealing with clients who were utilizing purification on HPLC columns. This led the company in expanding its batch of products and expanding its businesses.

Service through Products

Orochem’s first product roll out was a high-throughput synthesis 96-well plate for Oligonucleotide Synthesis, which went on to become an industry-standard format for all other companies. It also further led to the implementation in the leading Oligo houses of the 384-well Oligo Synthesis format.

For sample prep products, the company started from filter and protein crash plates and later it was able to bond different silica stationary phases and to synthesize polymeric stationary phases in house. It also has a patent on new generation phospholipid depletion plate, MatriKleen plate. For the last decades, company’s silica and polymer based solid phase extraction products are widely used in pharmaceutical industries, CROs and clinical diagnostic labs. From the year 2005, it started to manufacture customized industrial scale chromatography purification system based on knowledge of sample extraction and purification. During this period, Dr. Anil’s joined the company and brought in expertise in SMB technology, and helped the company to utilize it in nutraceutical, API, sweetener, proteins and natural dyes purification. 

Completing twenty-one successful years in business, Orochem has positioned itself as a globally recognized organization that conceives, develops, and installs some of the most technologically viable solutions with “highest purities” for industrial or metric ton scale purification and production of nutraceuticals, essential fatty acids, naturally occurring and recombinant proteins, specialty sugars or sweeteners and natural dyes.

Orochem’s R&D center in Naperville, Illinois, is globally acknowledged as a leader in vertically integrated Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) process chromatography from discovery to commercialization. With in-house capabilities of manufacturing customized adsorbents, its SMB models are designed to offer process economy in cost and utilization of adsorbent, solvent recycling and affordable equipment, leading to the most cost effective highly pure products, available in industry. Orochem’s SMB technology for purification of EPA and DHA from fish oil was commercialized in 2009 and has played a major role since then, in the development of high purity omega-3 fatty acids for pharmaceutical and food applications. Over the past several years, Orochem has successfully installed a sugar separation plant in Europe, a protein purification pilot plant in the US, and a phospholipid purification plant from krill oil, in North America and very soon, it will set up a commercial steviol glycosides purification plant in South America. The company has been granted 20 US and European patents for its unique processes developed using proprietary SMB technology. Serial entrepreneur in establishing new business which allow: Orochem Sirona provides R&D and analytical services, it will be certified analytical lab; forward integration of its expertise on separations, it established Kazmira LLC in January, currently it manufactures THC free hemp oil and CBD isolates in CO. Currently, Kazmira LLC is the Largest Manufacturer of CBD Products from Industrial Hemp in Colorado.

Footprint in Global Platform

Orochem started its venturing process from manual oversight that has led it to partial automation and currently it has integrated full automation. It has been also contributing towards the society by making pure nutraceuticals commercially operable.

Beyond the horizon

Orochem has an array of ideas to be implemented like: Polymer matrices, making HPLC columns (1.7 um to 2 um to withstand ultra high pressures), Panthera HL polymer SPE products, Gazelle UHPLC columns, and to initiate Purification processes using non-organic phases. With numerous products ready for the market, it has envisioned to develop its own feedstock. “We are looking to forward integrate and become vertically integrated in some of the commercially viable products we make,” wraps up Dr. Asha Oroskar.

Meet the dynamic duo

Dr. Asha Oroskar co-founded Orochem Technologies Inc. in 1996 in her home in Oak Brook, Illinois. She is recognized in the chemical industry for her expertise in filtration devices across all scales. Prior to starting Orochem, she worked at Nunc, now Thermo-Scientific Nalgene Inc. as part of a team that developed the membrane bottom filter plates and the molecular biology medical devices which evolved into a significant focus for Nalgene Nunc . At Orochem Technologies, her focus was to develop innovative value-added high throughput devices to serve the Biotech and the Bioanalytical industry. Dr. Asha’s prolific work has earned her many patents in the field. Her business acumen and knowledge of the chemical industry has allowed her to become a one of a kind entrepreneur whose vision continues to produce new opportunities for Orochem and has birthed companies in emerging markets such as Kazmira-LLC, the world’s largest manufacturer of THC-free CBD Oil and CBD Isolate.

Dr. Anil Oroskar co-founded Orochem Technologies Inc in 1996. Prior to starting this company, he worked at UOP, a technology licensor for the Energy Industry as the Vice President of Research and Development and the General Manager of Innovation. In this role he nurtured many businesses which were incubated in R&D innovation center at UOP and spun-off as new business entities delivering significant revenues to UOP. He was one of the Directors of American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE) and played a significant role in the 1990s to develop renewable fuels initiatives.

“We really serve custom needs in a very reasonable period of time and bring tools and technologies to provide total solutions for the client.”

Get in touch : http://orochem.com