Published on: Tuesday, 21 January 2014

For further information contact 
Dr Sandra Lenihan,
Department of Process Energy and Transport Engineering, 
e sandra.lenihan@cit.ie

Over forty pharmaceutical manufacturing personnel converged on CIT on Friday 31st January to attend an ‘Enabling Continuous Processing Knowledge Day’ hosted by the Department of Process Energy and Transport Engineering and CIT CAPPA in conjunction with the School of Pharmacy, UCC.   This event was organised on the behalf of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre (PMTC), an Enterprise Ireland/IDA funded research group to assist the Irish Pharmaceutical Industry improve its competitiveness.  The Knowledge Day had both international and national experts presenting in the following areas: quality risk management, Process Analytical Technology (PAT) implementation and Quality by Design (QbD) in product development and regulatory affairs.  The aforementioned experts were Prof. Brian Carlin; FMC Biopolymer US, Dr. Kevin O’Donnell; Irish Medicines Board, James Cartwright; GSK UK and Phil Doherty; Process Analytics.  All speakers delivered knowledgeable insights in their respective areas. Workshops were well attended in the afternoon covering Basics in Roller Compaction and Material Characterisation in solid oral dosage formulation.

The Knowledge Day was funded through a project entitled “Enabling and Control of Continuous Processing” under the PMTC. This project is to establish best practice through Quality by Design (QbD) and Process Analytical Technology (PAT) initiatives to achieve a consistent quality product. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology Centre (PMTC) is an EI/IDA funded Technology Centre to assist the Irish Pharmaceutical Industry to improve its competiveness. The initial focus of the Centre is on development of Advanced Analytical Technology solutions to provide real time, relevant data and information which enables high levels of process and product quality control, with faster concurrent and end product testing.

This project is led by the School of Pharmacy in UCC and UL. Project partners include CIT’s Department of Process Energy and Transport Engineering and Centre for Advanced Photonic and Process Analysis (CAPPA), and WIT’s Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC).