Description:
Continuous Production of Polymer Coated Drug Crystals, Submicron Particles, and Nanoparticles
NJIT Docket # 14-005 and 14-036
Inventors: Kamalesh Sirkar, Robert Pfeffer, Dengyue Chen, and Dhananjay Singh
Intellectual Property & Development status:
1. US patent issued. Patent no. 9,452,930 https://patents.google.com/patent/US9452930B2/en?oq=9452930
2. US Patent Protection is pending. Patent Publication No. US-2016-0166512-A1 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160166512A1/en?oq=US-2016-0166512-A1
NJIT is currently seeking commercial partners for further development and commercialization of this opportunity.
Technology Brief:
Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemical, Biological and Pharmaceutical Engineering have invented a novel method for continuous polymer coating of particles and crystals of various sizes.
Currently, no technique is available to continuously film coat fine and nano-sized drug particles with a polymer to produce large amounts of free-flowing coated particles. The invention involves two novel hollow fiber membrane-based crystallization methods: (a) solid hollow fiber cooling crystallization (SHFCC) and (b) porous hollow fiber membrane-based anti-solvent crystallization (PHFAC). These methods can be used for continuously synthesizing polymer coated drug crystals and producing continuously a polymer coating on submicron and nano-sized particles already present in suspension. Controlled cooling or addition of an anti-solvent allows for polymer nucleation on the surface of the particles and the formation of a thin polymer film around the particles, the thickness of which can be varied depending on the operating conditions. Furthermore, scale-up of both techniques can be easily accomplished by using a larger SHFCC or PHFAC module containing a larger number of solid or porous hollow fiber membranes.
Applications
• Pharmaceuticals
Polymer coating of drug crystals/particles
Production of polymer-coated drug crystals
Advantages
• Continuous Coating
• Flexibility in coating thickness
• Easy Scaling up
Inventors Bio:
Kamalesh Sirkar - Kam Sirkar has been in the faculty of Stevens Institute of Technology and NJIT doing research on membrane separations, membrane transport, membrane fabrication and membrane-based separation-reaction applications for the last 37 years; he has been at NJIT since 1992. He is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and has been the Sponsored Chair for Membrane Separations and Biotechnology and the Foundation Professor of Membrane Separations. He has published more than 196 refereed journal articles and has received 31 US patents and 3 Canada patents. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering. He pioneered membrane contactor processes: the already-commercialized membrane solvent extraction technology; the contained liquid membrane technology. His hollow fiber membrane distillation technology has also been licensed out. The two current technologies of interest utilize two recent patents granted to him on hollow fiber membrane-based crystallization techniques (US Patents, 7,754,083 and 7,811,381).
Robert Pfeffer - Bob Pfeffer spent 35 years on the faculty of the Chemical Engineering Department at CCNY as Herbert Kayser Professor, Department Chair, Dean of Graduate Studies, and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He them moved to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, and later as Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, He retired from NJIT in 2006 and joined the Chemical Engineering Program of the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy (SEMTE) at Arizona State University (ASU) as a Research Professor, where he continues to be active in research. His research has been in the general area of particle technology including aerosol filtration, granulation, dry particle coating, fluidization of cohesive particles, and more recently in nanotechnology, His work on the fluidization, coating, and mixing of nanopowders has led to new technology developments and applications in a variety of industries. He has published more than 160 refereed journal articles, 30 conference proceedings papers, and has received 13 US patents.