Conference on Lyophilisation 2010

With over 130 products on the market worth $50bn, biologicals and biopharmaceuticals remain the fastest growing segment amongst novel pharmaceutical entities today (1, 2). Mirroring this trend, the market for lyophilising these compounds, currently approaching 200 million units (3), is set to continue its year-on-year double digit growth.
Without lyophilisation, 60% of biotherapeutics including recombinant proteins, plasma, vaccines and antibodies could not be commercially available (3). Freeze-drying has become increasingly efficient in recent years, easier to use, more cost-effective and extremely accurate. It imparts higher stability, broader temperature tolerance, and longer shelf life to pharmaceutical formulations unstable in aqueous solution (4).