Pfizer outlines vision for Systems-based Pharmaceutics

May 17 2012

Leading pharmaceuticals company Pfizer outlined its vision for Systems-based Pharmaceutics^TM, a revolutionary model-based approach linking drug process and product engineering to product quality and performance in the human body, at the recent Advanced Process Modelling Forum in London.    

Keynote speaker Ravi Shanker, Senior Research Fellow at Pfizer, said it is essential that pharmaceutical companies develop better methodologies to ensure the quality and efficacy of their products. This can only be achieved reliably and efficiently by developing a quantitative understanding of how decisions relating to the way the drug is manufactured affect the drug's behaviour within the body. He added, "Adopting a system-wide modelling approach is essential in this context".

The forum, aimed at senior business and technology decision makers in pharmaceuticals, oil & gas, power generation, chemicals, petrochemicals, food, minerals & mining and other process industry sectors, focused real-world opportunities to create sustainable value through the application of high-accuracy predictive process modelling. It was organised by Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), the leading supplier of Advanced Process Modelling^TM technology and services.

Other presenters in the dedicated Life Sciences session included Eli Lilly, GSK, SABIC, SASOL, Sulzer Chemtech and research organisations TNO, the Rutgers University ERC-SOPS consortium and Imperial College London. Focus was the application of model-based techniques to enhance manufacturing process design and scale-up, optimise operations, accelerate process innovation and manage new technology risk, with a focus on laboratory-to-industrial-process workflows for reducing time-to-market for new developments.

Pharma companies are adopting advanced process modelling technology to rapidly accelerate value creation as part of Quality-by-Design (QbD) approaches, in particular by facilitating the move from batch to continuous processing and optimising solids process design and operation.

At the forum PSE made two important announcements: the release of gSOLIDS^® 2.0, a second-generation solids process modelling software; the release of v2.0 of its gCRYSTAL^® software for design, scale-op and optimisation of crystallisation processes. The company also provided a preview of v4.0 of its gPROMS^® advanced process modelling platform.

Organiser Mark Matzopoulos, PSE's COO, says "advanced process modelling is about using predictive models to explore the design space rapidly, reduce uncertainty and make better, faster and safer decisions. The range and diversity of presentations at the forum illustrates the power that the technology has to transform the way the process industries design and operate."