Today’s chemical and pharmaceutical markets are rapidly changing and highly volatile. Pharmaceutical manufacturers face many challenges when developing products and getting them to market in a timely, safe and cost-effective way. When formulating new molecular entities, improving generic drug production and/or extending the lifecycle of existing oral solid dosage (OSD) forms, issues such as increasing patient safety, reducing the cost-per-tablet and optimising the price/performance balance are common concerns. To face these challenges, flexibility is seen as a key element, and one way to address this requirement is implementing portable, continuous, miniature and modular (PCMM) manufacturing facilities.
Many articles have been published in recent years that explain the benefits of multipurpose and modular plants for the chemical, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry, including shorter time to market, growth in emerging geographies, lower capital expenditure and on-demand drug production.1,5,6