(289f) Making Tangible Impact through Mathematical Modeling in Bio-Pharmaceutical Industry

Chemical engineers play a vital role in the development of various bio-pharmaceutical processes that achieve consistent product quality, predictable scale-up, and efficient operation. Achieving these goals require in-depth understanding of both the scientific and engineering aspects of the processes providing ample opportunities for chemical engineers to add value. Due to constrained timelines and intrinsic cost considerations around the drug substance and drug product development of novel, “first in the world” molecules, any attempts to reduce expensive and time consuming experimentation is highly desirable. To this end mathematical modeling can play an important role in conjunction with the chemical engineering principles and conventional wisdom.

The presentation will introduce some of the examples of tangible impact made through pragmatic modeling approaches employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD), discrete element method (DEM), population balance modeling (PBM) and applied mathematics. The cases include some of the key process equipment and unit operations that are employed as workhorses in the bio-pharmaceutical industry, namely crystallizer, agitated filter dryer; bioreactor and lyophilizer.

Nandkishor K. Nere, Kushal Sinha and Natarajan Ramasubramanyan are employees of AbbVie. The design, study conduct, and financial support for this research was provided by AbbVie. AbbVie participated in the interpretation of data, review, and approval of the publication.