IMX Seminar Series - Leveraging Soft Matter Concepts for Advanced Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Drug Products

Advances in modern drug manufacturing have primarily focused on discovery and synthesis of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). However processes to turn this API into the final drug product are multi-step batch processes, energy intensive, inflexible and wasteful. For example, large millimetric crystals are first formed which are then ground down to sub-micron sizes through energy intensive, tedious processes which can damage the API. These small crystals are then blended with a variety of binding and stabilizing materials in a trial and error fashion. Independent control over the drug loading, crystal properties, and release profile are not possible. In this talk I will discuss technologies being developed in our group which leverage soft matter materials and flow physics for advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing.  I will first review  microhydrogel and nanoemulsion systems which allow us to perform in situ API crystallization within template microcarriers. With this process we can independently control API crystal size, loading and release profiles.  Next, I will review a recent technique we have developed called embedded droplet printing. This process leverages yield stress fluids and allows us to process droplets in an “absolutely quiescent state”.  The platform is used for the rapid production of pharmaceutical particles that are highly spherical and uniform, key targets for flowability, and ultimately manufacturability of pharmaceutical drug products.