Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens. Intraocular lenses.

[caption id="attachment_35926" align="alignright" width="250"] Andrew Cottone[/caption]

Emerging medicines and much, much more.

New Castle-based Adesis specializes in producing difficult-to-make chemicals, which allows companies around the world to create new devices and develop medicines for incurable diseases. President Andrew Cottone says Adesis scientists are inventing solutions every day, and is excited by the growth and potential of the company.

"If nature will allow a molecule to be hooked together, then the talented chemists at Adesis will be able to put that compound together," he says.

Adesis is a contract research organization that is recognized, Cottone says, for its work in nitrogen-based heterocycles, or azoles, which help medicines become active in the human body. Adesis also is known for its work in stable label compounds, which are useful as part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's bioanalytic review of new medicines, as they make compounds more stable and help them survive through the liver.

The company was acquired by Universal Display Corporation in 2016, and Cottone says Adesis has since been able to grow by combining its science with the business backing of its parent company.

In recent months, the company announced two significant expansions. First, Adesis entered into an agreement for 7,000 square feet of space in the Delaware Innovation Space, a high-tech incubator catering to growing companies at the Experimental Station in Wilmington.

The move to the Delaware Innovation Space, Cottone says, offers a host of benefits.  "Adesis is still a growing company, and being around the folks at the Innovation Space immerses us in a culture of other entrepreneurial companies who are facing similar business challenges as we are," Cottone says. Adesis will also be able to use the new Delaware Innovation Space labs to do different types of research and then transfer the process technology to its manufacturing site in New Castle, Cottone says.

Adesis is also building out more manufacturing laboratory space at its New Castle site, with the 6,000 square feet of new space expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2018. As part of its overall expansion, the company received a two-part grant based on the number of jobs it creates in Delaware as well as the capital expansion of its New Castle site.

"Delaware has created a great business environment for technology companies like Adesis," Cottone says.
Cottone's expectations for the future are as broad as the array of chemicals the company can make. With expansions in the company's R&D and manufacturing capabilities, Cottone says Adesis is positioned to help its parent company drive the next generation of OLED technology to market while also expanding Adesis' work over a wide range of chemistry.

"I'm excited about it as a scientist who has almost limitless avenues that we can pursue," Cottone says. "We can control our own destiny."