Mera Pharmaceuticals develops technology and products at our oceanfront R&D; oriented Production Facility located on the Kona Coast of Hawaiis Big Island. We first opened as a small, one-acre facility in 1996, then completed a $3.0 million expansion covering more than three acres in May 1999. Our Kona facility has the systems and equipment that our scientists and production personnel need to handle the full range of tasks associated with our business, from developing and testing products at bench scale to conducting fully computer-controlled large scale production. These computer-controlled production systems can be tuned to produce the most desirable conditions not only for biomass growth of a wide variety of species, but to encourage them to generate higher concentrations of the products of greatest value. Manufacturing economics can be measured – not just estimated – on multiple products at once.
Closed system technology
The cornerstone of Mera Pharmaceuticals technology is the patented and proprietary Mera Growth Module. Though simple in appearance, the MGM is the result of years of careful research and development by an interdisciplinary team that included members specialized in fluid dynamics, marine biology and microbiology. The Mera Growth Module was designed to be efficient, easy to install and inexpensive to produce and operate. Through its careful selection of materials, the Mera Pharmaceuticals Growth Module is not only one of the largest, but also the most efficient commercial scale microalgae cultivation system available. At a time when the amount of capital needed to operate must be kept to a minimum, Mera Pharmaceuticalss low cost, high efficiency platform technology gives it a strategic advantage over competitors. The Hawaii Research, Development and Production Facility also utilizes finishing ponds for organisms or products requiring a second growth stage, and it has full harvesting and processing capabilities as well. Only the final finishing operations, such as extraction and encapsulation, which operate best at high volumes, are contracted out to GMP compliant facilities on the U.S. Mainland.