Pharmaceutical Technologies (Geoff Smith and Eugene Polygalov) has been awarded a grant of £400k for its part in a Technology Strategy Board Collaborative R&D programme to develop Lyosense (a novel approach to monitoring of the freeze-drying  process).

The project (total value in the region of £1m) involves four industrial partners. Various small businesses are also involved as sub-contractors on the project, thereby contributing to the University's HEIF targets to engage with SMEs. The project will establish a measurement system for on-line process control (based on the group's expertise in instrumentation design & development). This work builds on a recent project funded by Peter Ford's RED initiative (see http://www.dmudesign.co.uk) to design a pilot-scale rig and Faculty HEIF funding to pay for the manufacture of the rig (using leicester-based design and engineering firms: Brian Law Design & BlueFrog).

The project forms part of Pharmaceutical Technologies efforts to understand the factors affecting drug stability in freeze-dried products (with Dr Irina Ermolina and Dr Dan Fei) while developing new approaches to freeze-drying process control (with Dr Minghong Li).

For general information on Pharmaceutical Technologies research see www.pharmaceuticaltechnologies.org/researchstrategy.