Singapore, May 9, 2008: Agilent Technologies has secured an exclusive license to Aktiv-Dry's CAN-BD drying technology for nucleic acid active pharmaceutical ingredients.

 

CAN-BD is a continuous drying technology that produces uniform particles of low moisture nucleic acids, under very mild conditions, in a fraction of the time required by current batch freeze-drying methods.

 

The closed nature of the drying and collection system also reduces the risk of product contamination. The new spray-drying technology is expected to significantly reduce capital requirements and labor costs associated with large-scale drying of therapeutic nucleic acids.

 

"Agilent has long recognized that nucleic acid drying methods present a significant barrier to economic production of nucleic acid therapeutics at commercial scale," said James Powell, general manager of Agilent's Nucleic Acid Solutions Division. "We have been actively evaluating alternative technologies, and we are now confident that Aktiv-Dry's CAN-BD technology will significantly lower cost-of-goods for our customers while providing a higher-quality nucleic acid API."