Entry Date:
September 25, 2008

Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

Principal Investigator Bernhardt Trout

Co-investigator T Hatton


Currently, pharmaceutical products are manufactured primarily using batch processes, as has been the industry standard from the beginning. There is, however, tremendous potential to transform the entire industry by producing these products via continuous manufacturing. Moving to continuous has the potential for huge increases in efficiency, flexibility, and quality. As part of the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, a major effort in the Trout Group, together with the Hatton Group, focuses on the development of new technologies to effect continuous pharmaceutical manufacturing. These include continuous crystallization processes together with a variety of novel separations and final finishing processes that have the potential to transform pharmaceutical manufacturing.