Investments in technology are – quite rightly – frequently seen to be a strong rationale for press releases from industry players, especially those in the contract manufacturing business. As well as keeping science writers like me informed about recent developments, such news obviously meets its main objective of keeping potential customers informed about new offerings from CDMOs.
Of particular note, at the end of 2019 there was an apparent surge of investment in spray drying. For example, the Swiss CDMO Micro-Sphere announced a €3.2 million investment in additional manufacturing capacity with a new spray dryer system, while Italian CDMO Indena announced the installation of a spray dryer at its Milan (Italy) facility, and US-based Particle Dynamics announced the completion of a new, “state-of-the-art innovation centre” that included processing rooms housing technologies in spray drying, microencapsulation, continuous granulation, and solid dosage form development. Meanwhile, Catalent extended its global commercial spray drying capabilities with a $40 million investment in its Kentucky (USA) facility, and an agreement with Sanofi Active Ingredient Solutions (an industrial platform of Sanofi), under which Sanofi now provides Catalent with access to spray drying manufacturing services for Catalent’s customers in Europe.
Such investments and deals have been attributed to an increased market demand for spray drying. In fact, according to Global Market Insights, a market research and consulting service provider, the market for spray drying equipment within the pharma industry is expected to reach over $1.2 trillion by 2024, as market growth is driven by an increasing number of pharma applications.
“Our decision to invest has been fuelled by greater demand for spray drying services and we expect it will generate significant benefits for our clients,” said Michael Grassberger, Managing Director of Micro-Sphere, in a statement to the press.
To those familiar with the technology, this probably comes as no surprise. It seems fair to say that spray drying is one of the most remarkable technologies currently employed in pharma manufacturing. It is a continuous process that converts, in a single step, a liquid feed into a powder, and is an ideal process when precise attributes such as particle size, morphology and stability are required.
Spray drying was first applied to pharma in the 1940s, but it was not until the 21st century that the technology reached its full potential. The key driver for its renewed uptake was the need to formulate oral drugs in the amorphous state, in order to increase the bioavailability of many modern drugs. Spray drying’s rapid evaporation process, which precipitates drugs from solutions in an amorphous state, is now one of the most common formulation approaches to overcoming poor bioavailability.
As usually happens, when a technology becomes more popular, advances are made. Therefore, the development of a spray drying process today can be accomplished with a fraction of the material that was required 15 years ago, and it can now be done in a matter of days instead of months. As stated by Mingshi Yang, University of Copenhagen, in a paper published in European Pharmaceutical Review, “This is a paradigm shift in spray drying development and one that is being led by the pharmaceutical industry because the quantities of novel drugs are often limited and very expensive to produce.”
The pharma industry is also credited with developing spray dryers that combine the highest degree of finishing, and the most...
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