Tech Innovations: April 2021

Tech-Innovations-April-2021.jpg
(Panuwat Sikham/iStock via Getty Images Plus) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

This month’s roundup of new equipment, materials, digital solutions and other news includes items from Lonza, Waters, Eversana, Clinical Ink, and more.

This month’s roundup of new equipment, materials, digital solutions, and other news includes items from Lonza, Waters, Eversana, Clinical Ink, and more.

Tech Innovations: April 2021
Tech Innovations: April 2021 (Panuwat Sikham/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

This month’s roundup of new equipment, materials, digital solutions and other news includes announcements from Lonza, Waters, Eversana, Clinical Ink, and more.

Lonza: PyroWave PRO endotoxin unit
Lonza: PyroWave PRO endotoxin unit

Lonza has expanded its PyroTec PRO automated solutions for endotoxin testing with the PyroWave Reader add-on. The unit is designed for use with the company’s sustainable PyroGene recombinant factor C assay.

Orla Cloack, director of testing and informatics solutions with Lonza BioScience, said, “This new addition to our established PyroTec PRO Solution provides laboratories with greater ability to reduce errors and increase throughput while retaining their trusted endotoxin method. Customers can utilize the best method for their specific sample requirements while also furthering their efforts to more fully automate the QC lab and increase utilization of sustainable solutions.”

ACG Capsules: NTone capsules
ACG Capsules: NTone capsules

NTone naturally colored capsules have been added to ACG Capsules’ ACGcaps line of capsule rpoducts. The colors (Ocean Blue, Sunny Yellow, Desert Brown, Purple Pure Carrot, and Red Pure Radish) reportedly are non-toxic, contain no artificial ingredients, and do not alter product shelf life. The capsules are geared toward customers interested in formulating clean-label products.

Selwyn Noronha, CEO of ACG Capsules, said, “Consumer preference has shifted, and there is an increasing need for products with recognizable and simple ingredients. We anticipate real interest in these naturally colored capsules, particularly for nutraceutical formulations, such as dietary supplements; customers can fill them with powders, pellets, or granules."

Waters: chromatography data partnership with TetraScience
Waters: chromatography data partnership with TetraScience (petrroudny/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Waters has announced it has joined with cloud-based R&D tech specialist TetraScience to offer the Empower Data Science link. The technology couples Waters’ Empower chromatography data system (CDS) with TetraScience’s data platform and data-science tools, enabling users to gain insights into their chromatography data.

So much of the potential for scientific progress and discovery today is held within the laboratory data that scientists work so hard to collect,” said Mike Harrington, senior vice president of global markets for Waters. "Our partnership with TetraScience is built on offering scientific organizations the flexible means to access the instrument data connected through Waters’ Empower CDS so they can more easily use it to gain new insights and inform decisions."

Clinical Ink: 16th concurrent Alzheimer’s study
Clinical Ink: 16th concurrent Alzheimer’s study (wildpixel/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Clinical trial technology firm Clinical Ink has added its 16th concurrent Phase II/III Alzheimer’s disease study. The company supports sponsors working on such research by providing tools that allow for flexible data collection options for site-based and decentralized trials, supporting at-home collection of information, delivering data to trial teams in near-real time, and more.

Clinical Ink CEO Ed Seguine said, “Alzheimer’s is an especially complicated and challenging therapeutic area in which to conduct a clinical trial. Clinical Ink’s Lunexis eSource platform is custom-tailored for exactly such indications, enabling virtual and hybrid models driven by direct data capture. We’ve been pleased to work on therapies and devices offering such promise.”

Malvern Panalytical: Aeris compact X-ray diffractometer
Malvern Panalytical: Aeris compact X-ray diffractometer

Malvern Panalytical has launched an updated version of its Aeris compact X-ray diffractometer (XRD). The smaller-footprint system, reportedly incorporating features typically found in larger units, enables examination of thin films and (according to the manufacturer) conducts transmission measurements that provide accurate data not affected by sample preparation artefacts.

Wilijan Vissers, Aeris product manager, said, “By providing the data quality of a floor-standing system in a compact instrument, the new Aeris will enable a wider range of our customers to carry out in-depth materials analysis and optimize their processes – helping push the scientific frontier even further forward.”

Nanoform: Starmap v2.0 AI-based discovery platform
Nanoform: Starmap v2.0 AI-based discovery platform (Aliaksei Brouka/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Starmap v2.0 is the latest iteration of Nanoform’s artificial intelligence-based platform. The technology uses sparse-data AI to supplement experimental results from the firm’s CESS platorm, technology that reportedly can produce pure, homogeneous drug particles from solution in an excipient-free process.

Christian Jones, Nanoform’s chief commercial officer, said, “By determining which drug candidates are ideal for our CESS process, the next-gen Starmap platform can potentially create new opportunities for our pharma partners. These can include both revisiting drug candidates unnecessarily discarded by AIs trained on old particle engineering techniques, and rapidly picking winners among new drug candidates.”

Syntegon Technology: SVP Essential liquid pharma process system
Syntegon Technology: SVP Essential liquid pharma process system

The SVP Essential is designed to provide clients with a cost-efficient version of Syntegon’s Pharmatec SVP process systems for small-volume production of liquid pharmaceuticals. The unit, which can be equipped with up to two tanks and volume sizes ranging from 50L to 1,000L, is suited for simple parenterals and generics.

Stephan Hüttner, head of engineering process systems for the company’s Pharmatec brand, said, “Customers receive a fully automated, completely closed system with reproducible cleaning and sterilization. This way we ensure maximum process safety.”

Eversana: ACTICS RWD for chronic disease research
Eversana: ACTICS RWD for chronic disease research (Nobi_Prizue/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Eversana has introduced a chronic disease real-world (RWD) solution, covering more than 80m deidentified patients for clinical research. Through its ACTICS platform, the tech-enabled solution is intended to help users conduct regulatory-grade research studies, generate evidence and provide data-driven insights for improved outcomes and patient experiences.

The use of RWD to generate regulatory-grade evidence in chronic disease has the potential to speed cures to patients, enhance evidence for treatment, and give a stronger voice to patient experience,” said Brigham Hyde, president of data and analytics for Eversana. “The combination of scaled clinical data with expert curation and a scaled HEOR and data science capability gives clients the opportunity to make RWD a core part of their clinical and medical strategies for product launch.”