Faster, more cost effective course of touted as ‘significant advancement’ for the worldwide provide chain

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The COVID-19 pandemic put a highlight on the vaccine provide chain and public well being impression of vaccine stability. But Purdue University researchers have been engaged on the issue for years — utilizing rocket science to advance a freeze-drying expertise that lengthens product shelf life. And that expertise might quickly be out there within the market.

A Purdue-led staff has been awarded almost $1 million to pursue a technology of utilizing microwaves to make the freeze-drying course of twice as quick and more cost effective. Like astronaut ice cream, many vaccines are made steady for transport and storage via freeze-drying, often known as lyophilization.

“We want to push the technology further so that lifesaving treatments like COVID vaccines can easily reach every corner of the world,” stated challenge chief Alina Alexeenko, senior affiliate dean for undergraduate training and tutorial applications at Purdue University in Indianapolis and professor of aeronautics and astronautics and chemical engineering in Purdue’s College of Engineering. “The conditions required for lyophilization are like those in outer space — it is a cold vacuum. We approach innovations in lyophilization equipment design and process the same way teams approach new spacecraft design. This time we’ve found a way to apply microwaves to get past some of the challenges the environment presents.”

Alexeenko is co-founder and co-director of LyoHUB, a university-industry middle that brings collectively tutorial and {industry} researchers, representatives from authorities businesses, tools producers, and end-product customers to enhance freeze-drying expertise to make meals, prescription drugs and biotech merchandise safer and extra reasonably priced.

The commonplace freeze-drying course of may be very costly, however Alexeenko stated the brand new expertise could possibly be way more cost-efficient, with the potential for an instantaneous impression on lives and the worldwide provide chain.

Merck and IMA Life North America Inc. have partnered with Purdue on the microwave challenge, which is funded by The National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL).

Merck is offering vaccine samples and main growth of benchmarks to match the standard and microwave lyophilization. IMA Life will lead integration of the brand new expertise with your complete manufacturing course of for sterile prescription drugs and vaccines.

“This microwave technology promises to not only provide uniformity to the drug product but also accelerate the freeze-drying process,” stated Ernesto Renzi, president of gross sales and advertising and marketing at IMA Life North America.

In addition to Alexeenko, the analysis staff at Purdue consists of Eric Munson, the Dane O. Kildsig Chair and head of the Department of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy; Vivek Narsimhan, the Michael Ott Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering within the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering; Dimitrios Peroulis, the Reilly Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and senior vice chairman for Purdue University Online; and Qi (Tony) Zhou, affiliate professor of business and bodily pharmacy.

“This is a significant advancement of a technology that can have an immediate impact on lives and the U.S. supply chain,” stated Karen Plaut, Purdue University’s government vice chairman of analysis. “Centers like LyoHUB are a great example of how we draw upon Purdue’s deep research strengths and state-of-the-art facilities, such as Birck Nanotechnology Center, and leverage the expertise of industry and government to improve our world.”

Alexeenko’s startup, LyoWave, is working with Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization to convey this expertise to {the marketplace}.

“This is yet another example of a Purdue innovation that can make an impact on the world,” stated Purdue Innovates senior vice chairman Brooke Beier. “Purdue Innovates is focused on results: transforming research into intellectual property that can be licensed to startups and industries and, finally, products that can save lives.” 

About LyoHUB

LyoHUB (http://www.lyohub.org), a university-industry middle at Purdue University, is advancing the science and expertise of lyophilization with a purpose to decrease prices and enhance the provision of lyophilized merchandise. Though time-consuming and inefficient in its present state, lyophilization is a crucial manufacturing course of for the pharmaceutical {industry}. It is utilized in about 25% of latest injectable medication, vaccines and organic merchandise. The want for developments on this space is magnified as COVID-19 lyophilized remedies, equivalent to Gilead’s remdesivir, diagnostic reagents and different countermeasures are being developed and evaluated.

In addition to enhancing vaccines, biopharmaceuticals and diagnostics, lyophilization is utilized in meals merchandise. It is a $30 billion-dollar a part of the meals and pharmaceutical manufacturing {industry}.

LyoHUB was based in 2014 with two member firms. Since then, it has grown to incorporate 32 members. In 2017, it led the creation of the primary lyophilization expertise highway map, which included greater than 100 contributors from organizations throughout tutorial, {industry} and authorities establishments. LyoHUB additionally developed the primary acknowledged consensus commonplace in lyophilization instrumentation issued by ASTM in 2021. The LyoHUB tech demo facility is situated within the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Discovery Park District at Purdue. 

About Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Innovates Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the complete expertise switch applications amongst main analysis universities within the U.S. Services offered by this workplace help the financial growth initiatives of Purdue University and profit the college’s tutorial actions via commercializing, licensing and defending Purdue mental property. In fiscal yr 2022, the workplace reported 157 offers finalized with 237 applied sciences signed, 379 disclosures acquired and 169 issued U.S. patents. The workplace is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which acquired the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2020, IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and within the high 20 for patents. The Purdue Research Foundation is a personal, nonprofit basis created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for extra data.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public analysis establishment with excellence at scale. Ranked amongst high 10 public universities and with two schools within the high 4 within the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates data with a high quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 college students research at Purdue throughout modalities and places, with 50,000 in individual on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s fundamental campus has frozen tuition 12 years in a row. See how Purdue by no means stops within the persistent pursuit of the subsequent big leap, together with its first complete city campus in Indianapolis, the brand new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes, at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.

Writer: Elizabeth Ok. Gardner 

Source: Alina Alexeenko, alexeenk@purdue.edu