AM Technology flow reactors power South Africa's new CSIR FuturePHARMA facility, opened by President Ramaphosa
AM Technology's Coflore ACR and ATR reactors form the pilot-scale continuous flow system in the CSIR FuturePHARMA Small Molecule Facility, launched in Pretoria on 7 October 2026 to help South Africa make its own active pharmaceutical ingredients.
AM Technology is proud to have designed, supplied and installed the pilot-scale continuous flow reactor system at the heart of the new CSIR FuturePHARMA facility in Pretoria. President Cyril Ramaphosa officially opened the facility on 7 October 2026, calling it a "game changing facility" for South Africa's health sovereignty.
The launch at the CSIR International Convention Centre brought together the President, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Prof. Blade Nzimande, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) and leaders from science and industry.
Closing South Africa's API gap
South Africa imports around 98% of its active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), mostly from India and China. That leaves the country exposed to price swings, export restrictions and supply shocks, as the Covid-19 pandemic made painfully clear.
FuturePHARMA is the CSIR's open-access answer. It gives universities, start-ups and industry access to specialised infrastructure to take promising pharmaceutical science from the lab to clinical-grade material, then transfer proven processes to local manufacturers. The facility has two arms: an Investigational Vaccines and Biologics Facility, and a Small Molecule Facility for chemically synthesised APIs.
The project was supported by National Treasury through the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI), the Gates Foundation, the South African Medical Research Council, GIZ and KfW.
Continuous flow at pilot scale
The Small Molecule Facility is built around continuous flow manufacturing. Its job is to turn laboratory API routes into scalable flow processes and prove them at kilogram to multi-kilogram scale, de-risking them before technology transfer. It is the anchor infrastructure of the DSTI and Technology Innovation Agency's API Innovation Cluster.
AM Technology supplied the dynamically mixed, multistage flow reactor system for this pilot-scale work, following a competitive CSIR tender awarded in 2023. The system combines two members of the Coflore family:
• Coflore ACR (Agitated Cell Reactor) – Used for process development and R&D.
• Coflore ATR (Agitated Tube Reactor) – Used for kilogram production and above, with straightforward scale up from processes developed in the smaller ACR reactor.
Both reactors mix chemicals together through applying external energy, rather than relying on a combination of flow rate and reactor geometry to achieve mixing. This 'active-mixing' approach makes the Coflore system suitable for both short and long residence times (i.e. both fast and slow reactions) and also handle slurries, and multiphase reactions, which are common in API synthesis and often block conventional tubular flow reactors.
For CSIR, the benefits are the ones that make flow chemistry attractive for local, distributed manufacturing: process intensification, smaller footprint, safer handling of hazardous chemistry and consistent quality through steady-state operation. The CSIR team is already scaling up APIs for pain relief and breast cancer treatment.
What comes next
The CSIR team are wasting no time in offering contract development and manufacturing capability to local companies across South Africa, providing access to this state of the art facility to enable companies to greatly de-risk and accelerate drug substance and API manufacturing. AM Technology are committed to supporting the success of the facility over the coming years through an ongoing service agreement.
Quotes
CSIR – Dr Jenny-Lee Panayides, Chief Researcher and Research Group Leader: Pharmaceutical Technologies
"Bringing continuous flow chemistry into South Africa at pilot scale was central to what we wanted FuturePHARMA to be. The Coflore system from AM Technology lets our team take API processes developed in the lab and demonstrate them at kilogram scale, with the mixing and solids handling that real pharmaceutical chemistry demands. That is how we de-risk local manufacturing routes and hand them over to industry."
AM Technology – Dr Mike Kenny, Commercial Director
"We're incredibly proud to see our Coflore reactors at the core of FuturePHARMA, and honoured that the facility was opened by President Ramaphosa. The Coflore flow reactor system that we have developed for the facility allows for translation of research-scale chemistry into processes that are validated at multi kilogram scale. Companies will then be able to take work developed through collaboration with the CSIR able to easily scale up to producing tonnes of material on the same reactor platform. Working with the CSIR team to bring this capability to South Africa has been a highlight for us, and we look forward to supporting their work to make more of the world's medicines in Africa."
About
About AM Technology
AM Technology (Ashe Morris Ltd) designs and builds Coflore continuous flow reactors for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries. Its dynamically mixed reactors handle slurries, solids and long residence times, taking flow chemistry from laboratory development through pilot to production scale. For more information head to www.amt.uk or contact info@amt.uk.
About the CSIR
The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is one of Africa's leading research and development organisations, working across health, chemicals, manufacturing and more under the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. FuturePHARMA is its open-access national facility for pharmaceutical innovation and manufacturing. For more information on the FuturePHARMA Small Molecule API Development and Scale-up Facility, contact Dr Jenny-Lee Panayides on jpanayides@csir.co.za.
