49
R&D teams work closely with customers to identify the best way to package freeze dried products; sometimes this is a simple as increasing the size of the standard freeze drying tray by 4mm, a tiny increase that allows freeze drying scientists to process 50% more product on an individual tray. Other solutions are more complex and involve custom formats which increase shelf capacity whilst simplifying the secondary packaging of the fi nished kit. Space effi ciency is an important part of improving capacity and throughput, with signifi cant increases being realised without the need for further freeze dryers whilst reducing the unit cost and reducing manpower in kitting and assembly.
3. Increasing Capacity
The easiest option is to just buy further freeze dryers but the worldwide demand for the freeze drying of COVID related products has seen lead times rise dramatically since the start of the year, sometimes increasing from several weeks to several months on some of the more specialist models. How then to reduce the purchase time of a freeze dryer in the current market?
Biopharma Group is in the enviable position of being the largest global distributor of freeze dryers for SP Scientifi c and support the installation and servicing of those freeze dryers throughout Europe with our own team of engineers, based in our UK offi ce. This puts us
These changes allowed the team to dramatically reduce the freeze-drying cycle time from 5 days to 1.5 days allowing 3 production cycles to be run on one machine where previously only 1 could be run. Coupled with an improvement in cake quality and an increase in activity of the fi nished product, these changes worked to increase capacity within the facility without the need to add additional freeze dryers. Many established freeze-dried products have never had full cycle and product formulation development performed on them and the improvement in lead times and costs can be signifi cant.
2. Novel Packaging Formats
Cycle development and product formulation improve the effi ciency of the freeze drying process, but improving the physical packaging of product in the freeze dryer can have a large impact on throughput. Freeze dried products are processed in a wide range of packaging, from bulk processing which is generally the most space effi cient, through vials to tubes and fi nally to blister packs, which are ineffi cient in terms of freeze dryer space. For instance, processing PCR plates is around 16x less effi cient per test than processing vials and processing blister pack are 8x less effi cient than PCR plates. These large variants in space effi ciency greatly alter the throughput and consequently the economics of production, and packaging format should be at the top of the list for new-product development teams.
in a priority position for new freeze dryers on a reduced lead time whilst also having access to the refurbished/ pre-used market in Europe and beyond. The upsurge in both R&D and production work since the start of the year combined with our strong strategic position in the supply chain has allowed us to increase freeze drying capacity by 120% since the start of the year - a combination of new freeze dryers and refurbished equipment that has been installed, serviced and IQ/OQ’d by our own specialist technical engineers. Our mean response time to a freeze-dryer fault is in the region of 5 minutes - an industry leading fi gure that is hard to beat.
The challenges of overcoming capacity issues in freeze drying have been a focus for Biopharma for the past 6 months and our desire to meet and exceed the requirements of our customers has led us to change some of the ways we work fundamentally, whilst still providing the benefi t of over 30 years’ experience in the freeze drying market. This refocusing in response to the changing requirements of our customers and of the pharma industry in particular, has allowed us to dispense, freeze dry and package millions of COVID test this year and with the 2nd and 3rd generation kits nearing market readiness, increasing capacity in both freeze drying and production will be Biopharma’s ‘new normal’.
To discover more on freeze drying or about increased production capacity, please contact us
https://biopharma.co.uk/intelligent-freeze-drying/about-us/contact/ or visit
www.biopharma.co.uk
Rapid Protein Labelling Kit Launched
Fluidic Analytics Ltd has launched a time-saving and affordable protein labelling kit - fl uidiphore rapid amine 503. Absorbing at 503 nm, the new kit can be used with a multitude of techniques including the company’s groundbreaking Fluidity One-W instrument for protein interaction analysis.
Fluorescent labelling of proteins such as antibodies, DNA and lipids is widely used to investigate and better understand protein structure and function. There are various fl uorescent dyes available on the market, most of which require a long labelling process over several hours and a purifi cation step to remove excess dye.
Fluidic Analytics’ fl uidiphore labelling kit is extremely rapid, taking just 30 minutes to bind proteins rather than four hours to overnight, as is required by other kits. In addition, the fl uidiphore kit uniquely does not require a purifi cation step. This is due to a clever ‘triple-lock’ against background effects. Firstly, the absorbance of the dye shifts from 612 nm (free) to 503 nm when conjugated, meaning that unbound dye will not fl uoresce at the same excitation wavelength. Quantum yield (the ratio of fl uorescence emission to absorption) also increases upon conjugation meaning that unbound dye will have a much weaker signal than bound. Thirdly, any unused dye hydrolyses during the labelling process becoming inactive and unable to bind, therefore preventing the shift in absorbance and increase in quantum yield.
In addition, there is also a useful observable colour change from blue to red/yellow which confi rms that labelling is taking place, giving researchers additional confi dence in the process.
The fl uidiphore rapid amine 503 labelling kit is ideal for use with Fluidic Analytics’ Fluidity One-W instrument to study proteins such as membrane proteins, multi-protein complexes, and intrinsically disordered proteins. The Fluidity One-W enables researchers to accurately assess on-target protein interactions in solution, even in complex, unpurifi ed backgrounds such as crude lysates or blood plasma. The instrument reports absolute size of bound and unbound species, stoichiometry and the nature of binding can be assessed at the same time as binding affi nity, giving a complete picture of binding events.
51681pr@reply-direct.com
WWW.LABMATE-ONLINE.COM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
