Thomas De Beer graduated in pharmaceutical sciences in 2002 at the Ghent University in Belgium.
He obtained his PhD at the same university in 2007.
For his PhD research, he examined the suitability of Raman spectroscopy as a Process Analytical Technology tool for pharmaceutical production processes.
Within his PhD research period, he worked four months at University of Copenhagen in Denmark, Department of Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry (Prof. Jukka Rantanen).
After his PhD, he was an FWO funded post-doctoral fellow at the Ghent University (2007-2010).
Within his post-doc mandate, he worked 9 months at the Department of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmaceutics from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany (Prof. Winter and Prof. Frieβ).
In February 2010, he became professor in Process Analytics & Technology at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences from the university of Ghent.
His research goals include bringing innovation pharmaceutical production processes (freeze-drying, hot-melt extrusion, continuous from-powder-to-tablet processing etc.).
More specifically, Prof. De Beer contributes to the development of continuous manufacturing processes for drug products such as solids, semi-solids, liquids and biologicals (continuous freeze-drying of unit doses).
Thomas De Beer is also director of Ghent University’s Center of Excellence in Sustainable Pharmaceutical Engineering (CESPE) which is founded in 2016.
In 2018, Thomas De Beer became co-founder and CTO of the Ghent University spin-off company RheaVita which provides a continuous freeze-drying technology for the pharmaceutical market.
Driven by growing needs in the biopharmaceutical market and regulatory pressure, a continuous and controlled freeze-drying technology for unit doses to preserve biopharmaceuticals has been developed. Such continuous process allows a more efficient, cheaper, greener and controllable manufacturing method compared to traditional batch production systems, offering competitive advantages and business opportunities. Pharmaceutical freeze-drying (lyophilization) is a low-temperature drying process in which aqueous solutions of heat-labile biopharmaceuticals are converted into solids with sufficient stability for distribution and storage. Similar to all manufacturing processes of drug products (solids, semi-solids and liquids), conventional pharmaceutical freeze-drying is generally accomplished using batch processing that is considered time-consuming, costly, non-flexible and lacking robust quality control and real-time release. Four major industrial drivers are demanding a more efficient and better controllable pharmaceutical freeze-drying technology for unit doses: costcutting, regulatory pressure, a fast growing biopharmaceutical market and an ageing population requiring more personalized medicines. The continuous and controlled freeze-drying technology, developed following the principle of model based design, offers clear advantages over current batch production such as cost reduction (up to 50%), track-and-trace product quality control, and a significant reduction of processing time (> 40 times faster, e.g. 1 hour instead of 5 days at a vial level), reduced need for clean room and a substantial sustainability gain.
View DetailsThis presentation will present two innovative continuous freeze-drying technologies: (i) A Continuous and Controlled Pharmaceutical Freeze-Drying Technology for Unit Doses (e.g., vials, syringes, dual chamber cartridges); and (ii) A SMART technology for the continuous manufacturing of lyophilized orally disintegrating tablets. These continuous processes allow a more efficient, cheaper, greener and controllable manufacturing compared to traditional batch production systems, offering competitive advantages and business opportunities.
Three major industrial drivers are demanding a more efficient and better controllable pharmaceutical freeze drying technology: cost-cutting, regulatory pressure and need for new types of formulations for different increasing target populations.
The in this talk presented continuous freeze drying technologies offer clear advantages over current batch production such as cost reduction (up to 50%), track-and-trace product quality control, and a significant reduction of processing time (> 40 times faster), a substantial sustainability gain and an opportunity to manufacture new types of products which cannot be processed using the current batch-wise technology.
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