STTR Phase I: Ultrasonic Measurement Instrument for Pharmaceutical Tablet Design, Development, and Continuous Manufacturing

这个小企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是改善药品生产的质量控制。压缩片剂是全世界使用的最流行的药物剂型。尽管其制造工艺完善，但片剂质量问题频繁发生。其设计和制造中的问题有可能造成重大的医疗和财务影响，因为质量问题可能会导致对患者的伤害、产品召回和药品短缺。拟议的超声波测量仪器（UMI）单位将大大缩短药片设计/开发周期，并在发布前检测/识别制造和质量问题。其在现代连续生产线中的使用将最大限度地降低有缺陷的片剂生产/处置和昂贵的产品召回/dissent的风险。UMI装置将产生两种不同的解决方案：（i）用于连续制造生产线的实时预防性质量监测装置和（ii）用于表征片剂物理特性的独立实验室设备。我们基于UMI的产品的目标用户包括制药商、设备供应商、仿制药制造商、公司和大学的研发团队和药物开发团队以及复方药房。这个小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目及其超声方法与制药业的质量评估和监测技术相比具有几个关键优势。与其他检测技术不同，超声直接与介质的质量密度、材料弹性/粘弹性、缺陷/裂纹和不均匀性相互作用，压电换能器是用于瞬态应变感测的最敏感的设备。超声波技术在MHz频率下工作，可在相关波长下对片剂和缺陷尺寸（微米至毫米级）进行快速（微秒级）测量。要解决的挑战包括：（i）具有微结构的粘弹性片剂材料的现有波传播模型不足以用超声进行准确的材料表征/评估，以及（ii）需要用于片剂的精确处理和定位装置，因为对于机器学习和数据分析/挖掘，需要大数据集的可重复采集和处理。该项目的主要成果是一个概念验证测试/测量单元（UMI），它具有精确的平板电脑处理子系统及其用于形成大型数据集的数学算法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to improve quality control in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The compressed tablet is the most popular pharmaceutical dosage form in use worldwide. Despite its well-established manufacturing processes, issues with tablet quality are frequent. Issues in its design and manufacturing have the potential to make significant medical and financial impacts as failures in quality may result in harm to patients, product recalls, and medicine shortages. The proposed Ultrasonic Measurement Instrument (UMI) unit will substantially shorten drug tablet design/development cycles and detect/identify manufacturing and quality problems before release. Its utilization in modern continuous manufacturing lines will minimize the risk of defective tablet production/disposition and costly product recalls/disposals. The UMI unit will lead to two distinct solutions: (i) a real-time preventive quality monitoring device for continuous manufacturing production line and (ii) a stand-alone laboratory equipment for characterizing tablet physical properties. The target users for our UMI-based products include pharmaceutical manufacturers; equipment providers; generic drug manufacturers; R&D groups and drug development teams in corporations and universities; and compounding pharmacies.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project and its ultrasonic approach have several critical advantages over the competing quality assessment and monitoring technologies for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Unlike other detection techniques, ultrasound directly interacts with the mass density, material elasticity/viscoelasticity, defects/cracks, and inhomogeneities of a medium and piezoelectric transducers are the most sensitive devices for transient strain sensing. Operating in MHz frequency, ultrasonic techniques make rapid (micro-seconds scale) measurements at relevant wavelengths for tablet and defect sizes (micrometer to millimeter scales). Challenges to be addressed include: (i) existing wave propagation models for viscoelastic tablet materials with microstructures are inadequate for accurate materials characterization/valuation with ultrasound, and (ii) a precise handling and positioning apparatus for tablets is needed, as for machine learning and data analytics/mining, the repeatable acquisition and processing of large data sets are required. The main outcome of the project is a proof-of-concept testing/measurement unit (UMI) with a precise tablet handling sub-system and its accompanying mathematical algorithms for the formation of large data sets.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.