Aston Particle Technologies (APT) has significantly expanded its in-house R&D capabilities by investing in two benchtop systems – designed by GB Innomech (Innomech) – to prepare small quantities of blended pharmaceutical powders for use in its formulation development projects for pharmaceutical companies.

APT is already working with a number of large multinational pharmaceutical companies but the two new systems will allow it to further increase its commercialisation activities and the number and scale of development projects it can work on simultaneously.  The new systems could also play a key role in helping to accelerate, for example, the development of new dry powder inhaler formulations for the treatment of asthma and COPD; novel ways to improve the delivery and potency of poorly water-soluble drugs; taste-masking solutions; or to improve the flowability of powders.

The new sample preparation systems have been specifically developed by automation consultancy Innomech to reproduce APT’s unique one-step particle engineering technology on a small scale: to enable ‘challenging’ active pharmaceutical powders to be dry powder coated onto carrier particles.  The systems can be used to prepare up to tens of grams of blended materials but use exactly the same process technology, conditions and recipe-based control system as the company’s two kilogram pilot-scale production unit.

As soon as a development partner has then selected which formulations to progress, APT can immediately transfer the process conditions into its pilot-scale system to start producing the blended material in kilogram quantities for more extensive R&D studies.

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