Rising inhaler device use fuelling automated QC testing
quality control (QC) testing equipment for these products,
according to Astech Projects.
The UK company said it has experienced a major increase in sales for its automated inhaler device manufacturing and testing equipment and is increasing its workforce by 20 per cent as a result.
Astech's custom-designed machines carry out standard QC tests, such as particle size, that are required by the regulatory authorities for finished inhaler drug products, and can also be used for purposes such as formulation development during the R&D process.
"There is an increasing incidence in the population of illnesses such as asthma that require inhaler devices and there has also been an influx of R&D activity in this area, especially in asthma and insulin products, and this is driving demand for QC machinery," Astech spokesperson Anthony Moran told In-PharmaTechnologist.com.
"We expect the demand for our equipment to continue and have recently also moved to a larger premises to give us extra capacity as we ramp up our business in this area."
According to Moran, the automated nature of the machines is another reason for their growing popularity. Three years ago most testing of this nature had to be done manually.
"Not many companies offer bespoke, automated machinery in this field due to the technical specialty required," he said.
"With our machines the QC process is fully automated, from storage through to the reporting of analytical results."
More recently, Astech has taken its experience in inhaled dosage forms and adapted it to make automated equipment for the solid dosage QC testing market.
Taking this a step further, the company is in the middle of custom designing machinery that will allow AstraZeneca to perform automated QC testing on its prefilled syringes - Astech's first foray into this area.
