I-Corps: System for Sampling of Powder Blends in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将首先在制药业实现，因为制药业需要粉末混合物来制备片剂。新的采样器将在更短的时间内将产品推向市场，为患者和制药公司带来好处。拟议的设备(取样器)将潜在地保护制药厂的员工免受潜在有毒药物的影响。它可能在各种行业中都有用，并适用于维生素、营养食品、奶粉和其他食品等粉末混合物。该采样器将改进质量控制，并可能导致在质量控制中具有代表性的采样，从而降低客户和患者的风险。这个i-Corps项目将定义制药和食品制造应用中采样粉末的基本组件和特征。目前的技术没有提供这些重要商业产品的代表性样本。目前的方法使用鱼叉(窃贼采样器)仅从制造设备内的几个预先选择的位置获取样本，并且通常无法检测这些位置之外的变化或问题。长矛还经常改变取样材料的成分，对粉末产品的成分提供不准确的测量。新设备将基于最初在采矿业内建立的最佳做法，由于缺乏适当的采样设备，这些最佳做法尚未适应制药和食品行业。I-corps项目的目标是开发粉末抽样方法，以提高粉末产品的质量，并避免由于糟糕的抽样实践而造成不必要的产品损失。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project will be realized first in pharmaceutical manufacturing where powder blends are required to prepare tablets. The new sampler will bring products to market in less time providing benefit to patients and pharmaceutical companies. The proposed device (sampler) will potentially protect employees in pharmaceutical plants from exposure to potentially toxic drugs. It will potentially be useful across a wide variety of industries and be suitable for powder blends such as vitamins, nutraceuticals, powdered milk, and other food products. The sampler will improve quality control and potentially lead to representative sampling in quality control, thereby reducing risk to customers and patients.This I-Corps project will define the essential components and features for sampling powders in pharma and food manufacturing applications. The current technology does not provide representative samples from these important commercial products. Current approaches use a spear (thief sampler) to obtain samples from only a few pre-selected locations within the manufacturing equipment, and will typically fail to detect variations or problems outside of these locations. The spear also often alters the composition of the material that is sampled, providing inaccurate measurements of the composition of the powdered product. The new device will be based on best practices first established within the mining industry, which have not been adapted to the pharmaceutical and food industries due to lack of suitable sampling devices. The goal of the I-corps project is to develop powder sampling methods to improve the quality of powder based products, and avoid unnecessary product loss due to poor sampling practices.