High throughput approaches to designer products—myth or reality

During the past decade there have been major advances in the application of high throughput technologies (HTT), led by the pharmaceuticals sector with the principal aim of accelerating drug discovery. A consequence of this is that technology is now available to improve the throughput of research laboratories and other sectors have now started to exploit HTT to improve their R&D productivity. The evidence available suggests that the UK economy could benefit substantially from the effective exploitation of HTT in a number of important industry sectors, including speciality chemicals, oil and gas, home and personal care, and food and drink.It is a characteristic of these sectors that end products rarely consists of new compounds but are formulations of known ingredients aimed at delivering a specific effect or performance. The pharmaceutical sector also has a major interest in formulation, largely in terms of engineering the best drug delivery to the patient. These requirements place additional demands on the science and technology which is currently available. In particular new high throughput screening approaches are required in order to give a useful indication of the product performance; these are likely to involve physical properties such as rheology and particle size, the measurement of which is not straightforward in high throughput mode. Formulation also often makes difficult demands on the robotics available for materials handling, in particular viscous fluids and soft solids, where conventional equipment has limitations.The recently published InsightFaraday technology roadmap, based on consultations with industrialists and academics, identified the major technical issues to be addressed through research and development or technology transfer. In addition it highlighted some of the less tangible areas in need of attention, such as awareness, affordable access to HTT facilities and the management of change as a result of introducing a disruptive technology. It is also apparent that, whilst there is a significant amount of commercially confidential activity underway in high throughput formulation, there is also considerable opportunity for practitioners in non-competing sectors to share valuable information on their approaches.If HTT are implemented effectively in a formulation laboratory, there are several benefits to be gained from better optimisation of product design and performance, including:
• Doing more—acquiring empirical data on a much greater range of the rich and complex “design space” inherent in multi-component materials.
• Doing it faster—parallel rather than sequential.
• Doing it smarter—for example by using experimental design algorithms to obtain “best compromise” solutions as quickly and with as few experiments as possible.
• Better prediction—the ability to predict behaviour through mechanism-based rules or modelling and simulation, based and validated on more comprehensive data sets.
• Generating better correlation between laboratory based measurement and real-world performance characteristics.