This month’s roundup of new excipients, manufacturing sites, partnerships, and other items includes news from DFE Pharma, Vetter, and other notable firms.
This month’s roundup of new excipients, manufacturing sites, industry partnerships, and other items includes news from DFE Pharma, Vetter, CluePoints, Roquette and other notable firms.
DFE Pharma has released Pharmacel sMCC 90, a silicified microcrystalline cellulose (MCC). The new product is designed to offer a synergistic solution for challenging oral solid dosage formulations.
CEO Bas van Driel commented: “Pharmacel sMCC 90 is an ideal excipient that improves tablet compression and aids higher production speed, thereby enabling rapid formulation development. We always put innovation at the heart of our business, thereby bringing excipients with multiple functionality benefits to our customers to meet their formulation needs.”
One year after purchasing a clinical manufacturing site in Rankweil, Austria, Vetter has announced the facility has been upgraded to be in line with the company’s aseptic fill and finish standards for drug-delivery systems. It features 100,000 square feet of offices, laboratory space, areas for material preparation, storage (room-temperature, cool, and frozen), and an automated vial filling line for liquid and lyophilized products.
“With this additional facility we will further expand our capability for early clinical development for phase I and phase II drug candidates,” said managing director Peter Soelkner. “The dedicated manufacturing site will focus on supporting our customers on quality, timeliness and technical expertise.”
Cognizant has announced a collaboration with health technology provider Royal Philips, designed to develop health solutions that improve patient care and accelerate trials. The alliance will merge Philips Healthsuite, a cloud-based platform, and Cognizant’s digital engineering capabilities. and Cognizant Collaborate to Introduce Digital Health Solutions to Providers, Researchers and Patients
“Despite advances, patients and clinicians still face a fragmented technology and data landscape that holds back innovative healthcare services which improve care quality and the human experience,” said Shez Partovi, Royal Philips chief innovation and strategy officer. “Partnering with Cognizant’s experienced digital engineering teams will accelerate the adoption of solutions built on Philips HealthSuite, delivering digital solutions across the healthcare continuum in a secure and compliant manner, and ultimately helping guide better health decisions for patients.”
Roquette has launched an online marketplace designed to provide users with access to the companies excipient products in smaller quantities than previously available. According to the company, the e-commerce platform will enable to purchase quantities suitable for early-stage development and scale-up activities, without needing to request credit.
“Accessing the right quantities of excipients at the right time is not always easy – especially in the early stages of drug development, when formulators may need more than a traditional sample size but less than a pallet,” said Paul Smaltz, head of Roquette’s global pharmaceutical solutions business unit. “Launching this new platform means we can meet these needs directly and take our customer support to the next level.”
Evonik has launched its Chemistry in Water production technology, enabling large-scale synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients in water. The solution is designed to minimize the need for large volumes of water in order to simplify processes and reduce environmental impact.
“Improving the environmental footprint for the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients is critically important for the sustainability of drug manufacturing going forward. It is a great pleasure to work with technology pioneer Professor Bruce Lipshutz and bring Chemistry in Water to commercial scale,” said Stefan Randl, head of research, development and innovation for Evonok’s health care business line.
Trial tech provider CluePoints has introduced its Post-COVID Trial Assurance Solution, intended to give study teams the opportunity to assess the quality of their data within a defined timeline and with limited resources. The tool is designed to evaluate clinical data to assess expected risks and at the same time identify anomalies that could indicate unexpected risks.
Patrick Hughes, chief commercial officer and cofounder, said, “Risk-based monitoring remains of central importance to help sponsors and CROs predict and manage risk at an early stage, so that monitoring resources can be prioritized based on actual need.”
Contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) has announced its plan to establish a new manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware. The facility, expected to open its doors in 2024, will be the company’s first location on the US east coast.
CEO Minzhang Chen said, ““Delaware’s highly trained pharmaceutical manufacturing workforce and proximity to many of our customers provide tremendous opportunities to support the region’s economic growth and efforts to advance pharmaceutical development and manufacturing. We are grateful to Delaware and Middletown for their leadership in fostering a strong entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem, and we look forward to collaborating to deliver groundbreaking treatments for patients.”
Cancer intelligence firm C2i and healthcare firm Premier have announced a partnership to use artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover oncology insights. Among the goals of the collaboration is establishing a real-world evidence (RWE) council, and creating a whitepaper that addresses best practices in point-of-care solutions.
“By deploying the C2-Intelligence Platform to Premier’s broad network of provider settings, we have the potential to make real differences in the lives of patients,” said Asaf Zviran, co-founder and CEO of C2i Genomics. “We’re also excited to see what new insights and treatment efficiencies we can unlock by combining our rich data sets.”
Clinical solutions firm uMotif has announced plans to work with rare-disease tech specialist Xperiome to explore novel approaches to patient recruitment. The approach reportedly will use digital patient community technology and an innovative patient engagement platform.
uMotif CEO Bruce Hellman said, “Having access to reliable patient data during clinical trials is crucial and it requires effective patient recruitment and engagement strategies. Xperiome and uMotif share a commitment to eliminating the friction in clinical trial enrollment, reducing the burden on both sites and participating patients; our partnership is designed with patients in mind, to help sponsors and research professionals capture the best quality data in a way that suits study participants. It’s a win-win for all stakeholders and has the potential to aid in accelerating the delivery of vital therapies to patients who need them.”
Digital therapeutics specialist Sweetch has landed $20m USD in Series A funding. The investment reportedly will be used to support development and adoption of its automated personalized engagement technology between patients with chronic conditions and health system staff.
“We believe that every person with chronic conditions should have a trusted voice empowering them to reach their micro-goals every step of the way throughout their unique health journey,” said Yoni Nevo, CEO of Sweetch. “The rapidly evolving remote health era is missing a critical component: effective continuous relationships between pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, payers, healthcare providers and each of their individual patients; Sweetch provides this missing critical capability at scale to outsmart chronic conditions, together.”