Our Innovation Analysts recently looked into emerging technologies and up-and-coming startups working on solutions in the pharma sector. As there is a large number of startups working on a wide variety of solutions, we decided to share our insights with you. This time, we are taking a look at 5 promising single-use technology startups.
Heat Map: 5 Top Single-Use Technology Startups
Using our StartUs Insights Platform, covering 1.116.000+ startups & emerging companies, we looked at innovation in the field of pharma. For this research, we identified 111 relevant solutions and picked 5 to showcase below. These companies were chosen based on a data-driven startup scouting approach, taking into account factors such as location, founding year, and relevance of technology, among others. Depending on your specific criteria, the top picks might look entirely different.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights 5 startups & emerging companies developing innovative single-use technology solutions. Moreover, the Heat Map reveals regions that observe a high startup activity and illustrates the geographic distribution of all 111 companies we analyzed for this specific topic.
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New Horizon Biotech – Fermentors
Single-use technologies have multiple benefits in pharmaceutical production, including reductions in time and costs, increases in productivity, as well as easy disposal. Single-use fermentors replace the traditional steel vessels with polymer bags. These bags are customizable for each test and optimized for high oxygen mass transfer.
The US-based startup New Horizon Biotech develops a patented fermentor system for flexible and cost-effective biopharmaceutical production. SUHF, short for single-use horizontal fermentor, is a pressurizable, low volume, modular, and scalable fermentor. It features a bag retention vessel, as well as agitation impellers and aerators. The fermentor is also mobile and has a flexible capacity, ranging from 50 liters to 300 liters, for production.
OmniBRx – Single-Use Assembling
With conventional bioreactors, the turnaround time between batches is high since they require cleaning and sterilization after every run. Single-use assembling speeds up the process by offering sterile, ready-to-use systems, allowing biopharma startups to develop products faster. Moreover, it saves costs on chemicals by eliminating the need for cleaning and sterilization.
Indian startup OmniBRx offers single-use assembling and other bioprocessing solutions. The startup provides disposable bioreactors that are run within minutes by a single worker. This allows for operational flexibility which, in turn, leads to a reduction in time-to-market and an increase in profit margins.
Yposkesi – Bioprocess Development
Single-use fermentors and bioreactors also find applications in low-volume manufacturing. This includes pilot tests of biopharmaceuticals or the production of small batches of personalized drugs. For autologous cell therapy, where a patient’s own cells are used to treat diseases, single-use technologies offer a rapid solution for bioprocess development.
Yposkesi is a French contract developer and manufacturer of gene therapies. It performs process evaluation and optimization in bioreactors with capacities of 2 liters to 10 liters. For scale-up experiments up to 200 liters, the startup uses a single-use bioreactor. The startup’s platforms further accelerate the production of adeno-associated virus (AAV) and lentiviral therapies.
CMAB Biopharma – Fill & Finish
In addition to production, pharma startups also use single-use technologies in other operations where sterility is absolutely vital. This includes aseptic fill & finish procedures which take a lot of time to ensure complete product sterility. Single-use systems automate the fill & finish process to speed it up while reducing the variability associated with manual processing.
Chinese startup CMAB BioPharma provides solutions for filling and lyophilization, as well as process development and good manufacturing practice (GMP) manufacturing. It engineers the filling equipment’s contact surfaces to be single-use. The filling process occurs in an open restricted access barrier system (oRABS) to further minimize exposure.
Fuelium – Paper Batteries
Startups are also exploring the use of single-use technologies for solutions in diagnostics, particularly point-of-care tests. These accelerate the development of rapid testing kits with high specificity and sensitivity. Solutions include paper batteries that facilitate the flexible production of diagnostic kits for a range of applications in pharmaceutical production and healthcare.
Fuelium is a Spanish startup developing an eco-friendly power source for single-use applications. The paper-based batteries are composed of lateral flow materials and are also activated by any liquid sample. This makes them a sustainable solution for diagnostic applications for drugs, infectious disease, women’s health, and veterinary services.
What About The Other 106 Solutions?
While we believe data is key to creating insights it can be easy to be overwhelmed by it. Our ambition is to create a comprehensive overview and provide actionable innovation intelligence and enable you to achieve your goals faster. The 5 single-use technology solutions in pharma showcased above are promising examples out of 111 we analyzed for this article. To identify the most relevant solutions based on your specific criteria, get in touch.
