Developers and manufacturers of biopharmaceuticals are turning their backs on traditional, similarly configured plants. They are looking at single use systems (SUS) to underpin the next advances and keep the industry on the front foot. As a result, the rate of adoption for SUS is growing rapidly. More than 10 years ago the first sterile connector was introduced to the market. Today, the market for single use equipment is worth US$650m and is expected to triple by 2017.
A number of fundamental changes have driven this increase in adoption rates. There has been a broad move to the production of smaller batches of a wider range of biopharmaceutical products, which requires flexible manufacturing solutions that can enable greater responsiveness to market changes. For example, the rise of personalised medicine and customised molecules to target niche diseases necessitates manufacturing on an entirely different scale from traditional batch production of generic pharmaceutical products.
Additionally there are huge opportunities in regenerative medicine, which require small scale, reconfigurable production methods. The resurgence of vaccine manufacture means developers are looking for production systems with strict biocontainment specifications, for which single use systems are perfect.
Not yet a Subscriber?
This is a small extract of the full article which is available ONLY to premium content subscribers. Click below to get premium content on Manufacturing Chemist.
Subscribe now Already a subscriber? Sign in here.