In a lab at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all the work that happens in a vast
pharmaceutical manufacturing plant happens in a device the size of your kitchen
refrigerator.
And it's
fast. This prototype machine produces 1,000 pills in 24 hours, faster than it
can take to produce some batches in a factory. Allan Myerson, a professor of
chemical engineering at MIT and a leader of the effort, says it could become
eventually an option for anyone who makes medications, which typically require
a lengthy and complex process of crystallization.
"We're
giving them an alternative to traditional plants and we're reducing the time it
takes to manufacturer a drug," he said.
The Defense
Department is funding this project because the devices could go to field
hospitals for troops, hard-to-reach areas to help combat a disease outbreak, or
be dropped at strategic spots across the U.S.
"If
there was an emergency you could have these little plants located all over. You
just turn them on and you start turning out different pharmaceuticals that are
needed," Myerson said.
Sounds
simple? It's not. This mini drug plant represents a sea change in how
medications have been made for a long time.
"For
roughly two centuries, to be honest," says Tim Jamison, a professor of
chemistry at MIT and one of Myerson's partners, along with Klavs Jensen, a
professor of chemical engineering at MIT. "The way that we tend to do
chemistry is in flasks and beakers and that sort of thing, and we call that
batch chemistry -- one batch at a time," he says.