INTERPHEX 2025: Continuous and Controlled Freeze-Drying

Regulatory uncertainty has been a challenge to the implementation of continuous freeze-drying in the pharmaceutical industry, according to Thomas De Beer, co-founder and CEO of RheaVita. “The pharmaceutical industry is highly regulated, which makes it pretty difficult to innovate—[maybe] not difficult, but it makes it slow to innovate, especially new manufacturing technologies,” De Beer says in an interview with Pharmaceutical Technology® Group at INTERPHEX 2025. “And along with that, let's say, regulatory uncertainty. You also have the mindset of people within the pharmaceutical industry, they know that there is regulatory uncertainty to innovate, so their mindset is a bit oriented to that regulatory hesitance. However, on the other hand, there are also opportunities.”

The highly regulated nature of the pharma industry may make it difficult to innovate; however, regulators can often be the instigation for innovation. “They published several guidelines on process analytics and process analytical technology, but also on continuous manufacturing,” De Beer says. “And you see that this indeed stimulated the industry to innovate in pharmaceutical manufacturing, to leave the conventional batch wise manufacturing approach and to focus on continuous manufacturing. And at the same time, you see also new types of drug products coming up. And these new types of drug products, they become more and more complex. They require more flexible manufacturing. This also helps to stimulate innovation.”

RheaVita is exhibiting at Stand 2967 at INTERPHEX 2025, which is being held in New York City from April 1–3. De Beer's presentation, "Revolutionizing Pharma: Continuous Manufacturing and GMP-Ready Freeze-Drying for Scaled Innovation" is scheduled for Thursday, April 3 at 9:15AM.

Click the video above to watch the interview.

About the speaker

Thomas De Beer graduated in pharmaceutical sciences in 2002 at the Ghent University in Belgium. He obtained his PhD at the same university in 2007. For his PhD research, he examined the suitability of Raman spectroscopy as a process analytical technology tool for pharmaceutical production processes. Within his PhD research period, he worked four months at University of Copenhagen in Denmark, Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry (Prof. Jukka Rantanen). After his PhD, he was an FWO-funded post-doctoral fellow at the Ghent University (2007-2010). Within his post-doc mandate, he worked nine months at the Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany (Prof. Winter and Prof. Frieβ). In February 2010, he became professor in Process Analytics & Technology at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences from the university of Ghent. His research goals include bringing innovation pharmaceutical production processes (freeze-drying, hot-melt extrusion, continuous from-powder-to-tablet processing, etc.). More specifically, De Beer contributes to the development of continuous manufacturing processes for drug products such as solids, semi-solids, liquids and biologicals (continuous freeze-drying of unit doses). De Beer is also director of Ghent University’s Center of Excellence in Sustainable Pharmaceutical Engineering (CESPE) which was founded in 2016. In 2018, De Beer became co-founder and CEO at RheaVita, which provides a continuous freeze-drying technology for the pharmaceutical market.