Melanie Sena is community editor of Pharmaceutical Technology.

Melanie Sena

Meissner’s Saltus M200 is a 200 L single-use mixing system that provides mixing processes for powder-liquid and liquid-liquid mixing. The Saltus mixing system’s fully automated control system features a one-button start and is self-deploying. The mixer can be used for preparing solutions such as hydration of cell culture media, buffer preparation, product reconstitution from concentrated solutions or powders, homogenization of dispersions or solutions, and chemical inactivation to affect viral clearance, all under aseptic operating conditions.

Articles

Single-Use Mixing System Improves Performance

Thermo Scientific’s general purpose centrifuges feature increased capacity and flexibility with rotor improvements including the Thermo Scientific TX-1000 rotor, which employs a 4-liter capacity in a traditional 3-liter footprint. Additionally, the MicroClick 30 x 2 rotor offers a 30-place capacity for microtube and nucleic acid spin columns, and is used for molecular biology applications. According to the company, these high-capacity rotors are designed to process more tubes in fewer runs, saving time while reducing wear on the centrifuge. The general purpose centrifuge floor models conserve bench space with a 25% smaller footprint compared to refrigerated benchtop models and a working height of 79 cm, providing ergonomic design for removing tubes and exchanging rotors. 

Centrifuges Increase Capacity and Flexibility

3M’s Emphaze AEX Hybrid Purifier combines polymers, fine fiber nonwovens, and membranes to create an all-synthetic clarifying product line containing anion exchange nonwoven media and a fine particle, bioburden reduction membrane. The defined pore size of the qualifying membrane provides removal of insoluble particles below 0.1 µm in size, resulting in turbidity reduction. In addition, the high chromatographic capacity of the Q-functional nonwoven provides reduction of negatively charged, soluble impurities including DNA and HCP. This combination of attributes allows the hybrid purifier to provide product purity before and after the Protein A column, enabling an easy post-Protein A mAb purification process. According to the company, this purifier can improve the production of mAb drugs for various cancers, as well as autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis.

Hybrid Purifer Enhances Efficiency

Turkey now supports a price efficient manufacturing industry far cheaper than those in the West and with comparable regulatory standards, concludes a Pharma Insights report from 

 and Global Business Reports. The analysis of the Turkish pharma market was conducted among all major Turkish manufacturers, evaluating conditions for both foreign and domestic companies. Overall, the report concludes that pricing challenges domestically have had a parallel effect on increasing the dynamism in the market and improving overall competitiveness of the sector. 

According to the report, improving reimbursement conditions should provide the right environment for an expanding healthcare industry, with Turkey having seen GDP per capita triple in the last 10-years alone. In addition to the domestic reimbursement market, niche products and export led growth is also providing opportunities for greater revenues. Investments in new facilities is also taking place across the market, which CPhI concludes will allow Turkey to establish itself as a supplier of drugs across the Middle East and North Africa and Commonwealth of Independent States. This will include exports as far reaching as the Baltic states, with Turkish manufacturers directly seeking to supply into Europe and the United States.

An increasingly prosperous population and a growing healthcare economy, coupled with a manufacturing base that has many FDA and EMEA approved sites means foreign direct investment is increasing. “The foreign/multinational companies now dominate with the larger Turkish firms acquired. There only a few large-scale Turkish companies left in the market,” said Vefik Koral, owner of Farkim.

As a result, those that remain will increasingly form collaborations and partnerships to help drive Turkey’s R&D sector. The Turkish government is also helping to reduce the trade deficit and increase innovation by offering corporate tax relief, access to institutions including Tubitak, and R&D expenditure support, which for accredited R&D centers covers 60% of staff expenditures. This new R&D focus is exemplified by the large investments made in several manufacturing facilities such as, Pharmactive for €88 million ($120 million), Onko Koçsel for €70 million ($95 million), Beko pharma  for €60 million ($81 million) and Centurion  for €20 million ($27 million).

Additionally, the country has a strong IP protection environment, with many Turkish owned manufacturers regularly patenting their own processes. According to an International IP Report, published in January 2014 by The Global Intellectual Property Center (GIPC) under the US Chamber of Commerce, Turkey now ranks tenth out of 25 countries in terms of patents, related rights, and limitations.

The CPhI reports states that a major obstacle for growth in the Turkish pharmaceutical industry is the government’s price referencing system and a fixed euro-lira conversion rate, with low prices putting increasing pressure on profit margins.

The CPhI report warns that Turkey's dynamism is being restricted by the current government reimbursement model.

Turkish Pharma Manufacturers Look to New Markets

Participants at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago were invited to mark National Cancer Survivor's Day on June 1 through artistic expression and help create a mural of a caregiver's artistic interpretation of her sister's journey with lung cancer.

The Hope Murals Project marks the 10th anniversary of the 

, which invites residents of the US and Puerto Rico who have been affected by cancer to express, through art and narrative, the meaning of their cancer journeys. The Hope Murals Project brings 10 murals based on art from past competitions to 10 cities across the US and Puerto Rico.

Marking the official launch of The Hope Murals Project, oncology professionals came together at ASCO to create the mural using a "paint-by-number" process. The subject of the mural painted at ASCO is "Creating a New Universe," a 2010 Oncology On Canvas competition entry by Chicago resident Gloria Cichy. 

Each of the 10 works to be transformed into Hope Murals is chosen through public vote on the Lilly Oncology On Canvas Facebook page. The first mural was  completed in Anaheim, CA, by attendees of the Oncology Nursing Society's 39th Annual Congress, and was permanently installed at the Anaheim Central Library.

ASCO meeting attendees give artistic interpretations of cancer journeys in the form of public Hope Murals.

Lilly Oncology On Canvas Celebrates 10 Years of Cancer Journeys

 has released the 11th Annual Report and Survey of Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Capacity and Production. This report includes a global analysis of 238 biomanufacturers and 178 suppliers in 31 countries. The 514-page study contains 11 years of biopharma trends and opportunities, including analysis of specific issues affecting the industry.  The report covers the events shaping the past year, and evaluates what will shape the industry over the next five years. The study focuses on 12 areas, including industry growth, downstream processing, single use systems, outsourcing, capacity, and quality management.

The data on global capacity reveals how the impact of biosimilars, outsourcing, regulatory, as well as downstream processing and single-use devices, are creating growth potential in both capacity and in the number of facilities coming on-line. Capacity utilization remains overall constant across mammalian and microbial systems, according to this year's respondents. This will affect, overall industry growth, opportunities for suppliers to the industry, demand for skilled staff and better technology, and regulatory demands on the industry.

In addition, the report features analysis on how trends such as mAbs, biosimilars, outsourcing, and disposables are creating opportunities and challenges to the entire industry. The study also compares over time how Western Europe, the US, and other global biomanufacturers differ in demands for new technologies.

The 11th Annual Global Biomanufacturing Study includes a global analysis of 238 biomanufacturers and 178 suppliers in 31 countries.