Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis

Quentin Hervé

Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Process Analytical Technology

Ottergemsesteenweg 460
B-9000 Gent (Belgium) 
Tel.: +32-9-264.80.90
E-mail: Quentin.Herve@UGent.beEducation: Chemist (Quality and Chemometrics)

Implementation and development of a new innovative technology for Orally Disintegrating Tablets production and Automated Visual Inspection for Continuous Spin Freeze Drying.

Continuous manufacturing is currently a topic of great interest in pharmaceutical industry. It is seen as more time and cost-efficient than traditional batch manufacturing, and as a means to counter ever rising costs. Continuous manufacturing is characterized by the ability to integrate different process steps in one manufacturing line, and the “one in, one out” principle. In food and chemical industry, continuous manufacturing is already a process standard due to its advantages. These include smaller size of equipment (and therefore production area), reduction of expensive scale-up efforts, high flexibility in product volumes and increased product quality consistence.

To counter the limitations and disadvantages of traditional batch lyophilisation and to improve the production of ODTs, the research group of Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Process Analytical Technology LPPAT, Ghent University developed an innovative technology (model-based designed) for the continuous manufacturing of lyophilised ODTs. The first goal of this research project, is to optimize the continuous production of any ODT formulation while guaranteeing the desired product quality attributes with this new innovative technology.

A second part of the research project involve the implementation of Automated Visual Inspection tools (Artificial Intelligence and Image Analysis) for Continuous Spin Freeze Drying. Visual inspection in pharmaceutical industry play significant role to maintain the product quality. It is mandatory to verify the presence of unintended particles and some other specific visual aspects. Artificial Intelligence and computer vision will be investigated to fulfill this goal.