Million dollar research boosts biopharma production

A polymer technology firm has been awarded over $1.1 million by the National Science Foundation to develop new manufacturing technologies for biopharmaceuticals

Advanced Polymer Monitoring Technologies will use the funding to develop multiple sample light scattering technology for monitoring stability and aggregation of biopharmaceuticals.

APMT has also used its aggregation rate generator product (ARGEN) for other applications in synthetic and natural polymers.

ARGEN allows measurement of stability and degradation of solutions, dispersions and suspensions under computer controlled thermal, mechanical, and chemical stimulus. Applications to date include carbon nanotubes to therapeutic proteins.

Mike Drenski, APMT’s chief technical officer said: “Our ARGEN team has developed an impressive instrument incorporating proprietary hardware and software. The ARGEN product is now operational and actively generating unique data for several early users.”

The underlying patented light scattering technology was developed in Professor Wayne Reed’s group at Tulane University’s Center for Polymer Reaction Monitoring and Characterization. Ongoing research at Tulane is exploring new applications of the technology.

“Through the generous support of the National Science Foundation, we are able to work directly with selected users to generate ARGEN data on relevant samples free of charge,” said Alex Reed, APMT chief executive Officer. “We encourage anyone wishing to learn more about ARGEN’s capabilities in monitoring stability and aggregation in biopharmaceutical applications to contact us for more information.”