Continuous Lyophilization and its relevance to the production of pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals

In response to the current trend in the pharmaceutical industry, a new concept for the lyophilization of pharmaceuticals in unit-doses is presented: the continuous freeze-drying/lyophilisation of suspended vials. This configuration makes it possible to set up a continuous lyophilization process that produces a final product with similar characteristics to those traditionally obtained by means of the batch process, but which avoids the drawbacks of conventional, batch freeze-drying. The continuous flow of vials is achieved by suspending them over a moving track. The vials move through chambers which have different pressure and temperature conditions and are separated by a sluice-gate system. The feasibility and advantages of this new concept are presented in this work.