How AI And Automation Are Impacting Process Development

David Ford is Senior Director of Chemistry at Snapdragon Chemistry in Waltham, MA, where he has worked since 2017. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University.

At Snapdragon he develops continuous processes for challenging chemistry, taking them from lab feasibility through to pilot production systems running at multiple kilograms per hour. He also leads the company's Equipment and Software team, building custom reactors, automation systems, and control software. His expertise spans process chemistry, flow chemistry, process safety, reactor system design, and laboratory automation.

Ford points to the sheer volume of data that pharmaceutical process development generates, and to artificial intelligence as a way of making that data usable. The value, as he sees it, is retrieval at the moment of need — ensuring the teams doing the work have the best available information when decisions are being made.