Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Collaboration furthers understanding of the stability of drug materials


http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/understanding-the-stability-of-drug-materials/


TeraView, the pioneer and leader in terahertz technology and solutions, is pleased to announce that as part of its ongoing collaboration with the University of Cambridge, it has exclusively licensed a new University patent application pertaining to the formulation of drug ingredients using amorphous materials.
This latest patent complements TeraView’s own portfolio of 10 granted patents in the pharmaceutical field which encompass intellectual property addressing tablets and drug formulation. This patent will assist TeraView's collaborations with leading pharmaceutical companies, which is helping to improve the speed of drug formulation, as well as the lifetime of drug products and their efficiency of manufacture.
The inventors of the new patent are Dr Axel Zeitler and Dr Juraj Sibik, from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge. Their invention is a new method of using terahertz spectroscopy to investigate the stability of amorphous materials, which can be used as active ingredients in drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. Amorphous ingredients have the potential to increase bioavailability (absorption by the body) of poorly soluble drugs when administered orally in the form of tablets or capsules.
Commenting on the collaboration with TeraView, Dr Zeitler stated ‘Our work on amorphous materials has proven to be of interest to the scientific community, in both its applications to materials science as well as the terahertz spectroscopy. We have also had substantial interest from pharmaceutical companies. Our long-standing relationship with TeraView, and its position as the leading provider of terahertz solutions, makes TeraView a natural partner to make our invention available to the wider industrial community.’
The agreement strengthens TeraView’s position as the global leader in terahertz technology. It complements TeraView’s existing portfolio of internationally granted patents in the application of terahertz technology to the pharmaceutical sciences and industry. TeraView’s intellectual property includes the use of terahertz to aid in the development of new drug formulations and solid dosage forms, as well as quality assurance in production. TeraView patents address issues such as delamination in solid dosage forms, dissolution properties of tablets, tablet coating integrity which is important for many controlled release products, as well as the use of terahertz spectroscopy to detect and quantify different crystalline forms of drugs (polymorphism).
 Dr Phil Taday, a Principal Scientist and Head of Applications at TeraView, said of the agreement ‘Understanding the stability of amorphous materials is clearly of increasing importance to the pharmaceutical industry.  TeraView sees this patent as an important addition to our portfolio, with interest shown already by major pharmaceutical companies.’
 Dr Don Arnone, Chief Executive Officer of TeraView, commented: ’This agreement further solidifies our relationship with Dr Zeitler’s group, and we are proud to be associated with his work and that of his team. This collaboration, where we have provided TeraView systems and other means of support, is a very good example of the sort of collaboration we seek to establish with world experts in their fields, such as Dr Zeitler.’
About Terahertz
Terahertz light lies between infra red and microwaves, and as such has unique properties which enables it to pass through objects and to transmit images and compositional (spectroscopic) information that is ordinarily hidden. Terahertz is non destructive, safe and fast, making it the ideal inspection and imaging modality for many applications across a range of industries.
TeraView has demonstrated the potential of terahertz technology in a number of applications including the detection of hidden weapons and explosives in security screening, monitoring the quality of pharmaceutical drugs, high value coatings used in automotive and other industries, as well as medical imaging of cancer.  In the semiconductor industry, Electro Optical Terahertz Pulse Reflectometry (EOTPR) is the world’s first use of terahertz to isolate the location of faults and manufacturing quality variations in integrated circuit packaging.  EOTPR has been widely accepted by the leading semiconductor manufacturers as their tool of choice for isolating defects in advanced integrated circuit packages.
About the Terahertz Applications Group
The Terahertz Applications Group is part of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge (http://thz.ceb.cam.ac.uk). By using terahertz spectroscopy and imaging, the group is aiming to understand the physical characteristics of a wide variety of materials spanning the fields of pharmaceuticals, catalysis, biologicals, nanotechnology and non-destructive testing.
About TeraView
TeraView (www.teraview.com ) is the world’s first and leading company solely focused upon the application of terahertz light to provide solutions to customer issues. A spin out from the Toshiba Corporation and Cambridge University, TeraView has developed its proprietary technology across a number of markets. These include fault analysis and quality assurance for semiconductor chips used in mobile computing and communications, as well as non destructive inspection of high value coatings used in the automotive, pharmaceutical, food and solar industries. With the largest number of systems in the field, as well as applications know-how made available to customers via a team of dedicated scientists using intellectual property and knowledge in peer-reviewed scientific publications, TeraView is uniquely placed to deliver the business benefits of terahertz to customers. Headquartered in Cambridge UK, sales and customer support are available throughout the Far East, North America and Europe either directly or through a network of distributors.

No comments: