Evolving World of Pharma: Spray Drying In the Pharma Industry

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 sophisticated control systems, with the simplest hardware designs that provide for easier cleaning. Another development that hails from pharma spray drying is the ability to obtain powders at milligram or gram scale using lab scale equipment that resemble those from commercial scale spray dryers, which can help to overcome concerns over the effect of scale-up on critical quality attributes of a product.

Looking to the future, I predict that the demand for spray drying as an enabling technology for poorly soluble oral drugs is likely to continue to grow, as amorphous materials become more established and widely accepted by the industry. Further significant growth might also be expected to come from applications in biopharma, such as in the isolation and preparation of peptides, proteins and monoclonal antibodies.

Reflecting this growing demand, I also predict more investments in this technology from CDMOs – I’ll be watching out for more of those press releases, so we’ll all be able to see if I’m right!

Author biography

Sarah Harding, PhD

Sarah Harding worked as a medical writer and consultant in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years, for the last 10 years of which she owned and ran her own medical communications agency that provided a range of services to blue-chip Pharma companies. She subsequently began a new career in publishing as Editor of Speciality Chemicals Magazine, and then Editorial Director at Chemicals Knowledge. She now focusses on providing independent writing and consultancy services to the pharmaceutical and speciality chemicals industry.

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