A portable, on-demand drug factory

MIT researchers have created a portable device capable of synthesizing drugs on demand starting from basic chemical components: the prototype could be extremely useful for small productions intended for a limited number of patients or for dealing with health emergencies in the field.

05 aprile 2016 – Le Scienze

A portable and reconfigurable drug production system to obtain different types, to be used, for example, during health emergencies or to produce limited quantities: this is the result obtained by a group of researchers from MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts , And described on the pages of the journal “Science”.

The production of drugs by conventional methods, collectively known as batch processing, it takes weeks or months of time. The active ingredients are in fact synthesized in chemical plants and then transferred to other sites to be converted into a form that can be administered to patients, such as tablets, pills, solutions or suspensions. This system has very limited flexibility when it comes to responding to sudden surges in demand and is prone to major problems if one of the plants goes down.

Many pharmaceutical companies are therefore trying to develop an alternative approach known as flow processing, a continuous process that takes place entirely in a single production site. Five years ago, a group of researchers from MIT created a prototype for the integrated production of drugs starting from the synthesis of the active ingredients to arrive at the tablets.

In questo nuovo progetto, finanziato dalla Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) degli Stati Uniti, i ricercatori del MIT hanno realizzato un dispositivo analogo ma di dimensioni decisamente inferiori, in grado di produrre in 24 ore circa 1000 dosi di diversi farmaci in soluzione o sospensione, come l’antistaminico difenidramina, l’anestetico lidocaina, l’ansiolitico diazepam e l’antidepressivo luoxetina.

One advantage of this small-scale system is that it can be used to produce small

quantities of drugs that would be prohibitively expensive in large plants. It would therefore be extremely useful for synthesizing the so-called orphan drugs, i.e. those used to treat a very limited number of patients.

“It is often very difficult to get access to these medicines because from an economic point of view it doesn't make sense to start a large-scale production,” explained Klavs Jensen, who participated in the study.

L’altra prospettiva che si apre con il prototipo del MIT è la produzione a richiesta, che evita di disporre di spazi da destinare all’immagazzinamento dei farmaci a lungo termine, e permetterebbe di rispondere prontamente e sul campo alle emergenze sanitarie.