Millipore launches disposable mixing tech

The new product, to be used for pharmaceutical ingredients from intermediates right through to final drug products, as well as for the preparation of process solutions, forms the latest addition to the company's Mobius family of integrated disposable bioprocessing products. The Mobius Mix200 disposable mixing system is the most recent evidence of Millipore's drive to become the leading provider of disposable manufacturing solutions for the biopharmaceutical industry. Following the acquisitions of Swedish firm NovaSeptic in 2005 and Newport Bio Systems just over a year ago, Millipore expanded its product portfolio and gained significant expertise in integrated disposable products and high performance mixers, which came together nicely to help create this latest product offering. According to the company, the new Mobius product can offer significant advantages to pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, particularly in terms of time savings. By offering mixing efficiency within a contained system, the mixing system saves time in both processing and validation, and can eliminate the need for customers to validate multiple products from multiple sources. Other benefits highlighted by the company include decreased risk of contamination, reduced downtime for cleaning validation and process engineering, and easy set-up. In addition to this, the disposable technology can also result in increased production capacity for multi-product facilities. Being an integrated and fully validated solution, the company also claims the Mix200 can speed time to market and minimise risk for its customers. The system includes a 200L carrier, a single-use magnetically driven impeller inside a disposable Mobius process container and an electronic drive unit. The Mobius system offered by the company also boasts a level of customisation depending on customers' requirements, with different filters, connectors and tubing options available depending on specifications and environment. With disposable technologies becoming increasingly popular alternatives to fixed stainless steel equipment and components, Millipore seems to be positioning itself particularly well in this burgeoning market. With the acquisitions made over the last couple of years, Millipore has placed itself at the forefront of disposable manufacturing solutions, claiming to be the only supplier in the industry that owns "all of the major disposable products and…process expertise required to deliver fully assembled and validated solutions."​ Couple this with regular announcements introducing new products and solutions for the pharma and biotech industries, Millipore would seem to be fast becoming the "leading provider of disposable manufacturing solutions to the biomanufacturing industry"​ that CEO Martin Madaus aspired to this time last year. The new mixing technology will be officially launched during this year's Interphex conference being held next week in New York City.