SP Scientific recently published an independent study to evaluate their solution for pharmaceutical product formulation and process development: the LyoCapsule Freeze Dryer. The development of biopharmaceuticals often requires lyophilized formulations to produce stable drug products, beginning with laboratory experiments followed by scale-up to larger lyophilizers. Limited supply and high cost of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) can present major challenges during formulation and process development. It’s necessary to have enough API to properly screen formulations for freeze drying feasibility, to understand critical product attributes, and to define product and process design space in order to create a robust freeze-drying process.
Representation of drying conditions
An accurate representation of drying conditions cannot be concluded by just placing a few vials of API within a larger freeze dryer due to atypical radiation conditions that can result from vials which are not situated in a close-packed formation, or are not able to fill the freeze dryer’s shelf surface. Atypical radiation effects can lead to variations in product temperatures and drying times, resulting in non-representative cycles. This study’s focus was to assess the capability of SP Scientific’s new LyoCapsule Freeze Dryer to emulate the product temperature history of a larger laboratory dryer often used for process development. This was achieved by comparing the radiation environment of the LyoStar 3 process development freeze dryer to the LyoCapsule™ Freeze Dryer.
