Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Antaris FT-NIR Platform is Chosen by Abiogen Pharma to Significantly Reduce Analysis Times of Raw Materials

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, announces that Abiogen Pharma S.p.A, a leading pharmaceutical manufacturer, headquartered in Pisa, Italy, has chosen the Thermo Scientific Antaris™ FT-NIR analytical system to perform raw materials characterization in its manufacturing facilities.

With the complete Antaris FT-NIR platform fully installed, analysis of one container of raw material now takes Abiogen only two minutes at the point of raw materials receipt compared to traditional, time-consuming laboratory-based methods which take between 15-60 minutes to complete. Deployment of Antaris FT-NIR has greatly reduced the company’s instrument and chemical costs and increased productivity, leading to significant savings in labor and equipment. It has also enabled Abiogen to comply with regulatory guidelines requiring each individual raw material in a recipient to be characterized.

Prior to using Antaris FT-NIR, Abiogen used separate methods for each raw material container including UV-Vis spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography (GC). Use of multiple time-consuming methods resulted in high variable costs, including the cost of instruments, reagents and chemicals. Carrying out separate analyses for different raw materials also required a substantial amount of time in the analytical laboratory, taking scientists away from higher level tasks and increasing their workload. According to Abiogen, one of the primary deciding factors in choosing the Thermo Scientific Antaris FT-NIR was Thermo Fisher’s proven track record of strong advice and technical support. Despite the company’s broad portfolio of instruments, all of which would have been suitable for the separate analyses of each raw material, Abiogen was advised to purchase the Antaris, rather than three separate instruments.

Since the implementation of Antaris FT-NIR, Abiogen has significantly increased productivity by eliminating the need to sample each raw material container separately, allowing laboratory workers to spend more time on research and development. The company has also achieved compliance with the European Pharmacopoeia 5th edition (2002), which specifies NIR spectroscopy as the best universal method for raw material testing.

The Antaris analyzer allows analysis in the original packaging, eliminating the need to open the main container, and does not need to be operated within a designated sampling area. This leads to a significant decrease in the time involved for each analysis. Furthermore, it is a non-contact and non-destructive technique, is highly reproducible and does not require any sample preparation.