Agilent Technologies secures license on spray-drying technology

Agilent Technologies has secured an exclusive license to use drying technology needed in the development of nucleic acid APIs.

The CAN-BD from Aktiv-Dry LLC, is a continuous drying technology that produces uniform particles of low moisture nucleic acids, under very mild conditions, in a fraction of the time required by current batch freeze-drying methods. The closed nature of the drying and collection system also reduces the risk of product contamination. The new spray-drying technology is expected to significantly reduce capital requirements and labour costs associated with large-scale drying of therapeutic nucleic acids.

"Agilent has long recognised that nucleic acid drying methods present a significant barrier to economic production of nucleic acid therapeutics at commercial scale," said James Powell, general manager of Agilent's nucleic acid solutions division. "We have been actively evaluating alternative technologies, and we are now confident that Aktiv-Dry's CAN-BD technology will significantly lower cost-of-goods for our customers while providing a higher-quality nucleic acid API."

Agilent will present a poster on this technology entitled "CAN-BD: A Novel Drying Technology for Therapeutic Oligonucleotides" at the upcoming TIDES Conference at Red Rock Resort and Spa in Las Vegas, Nevada 19-21 May.