Axsun Technologies’ Richard Crocombe to Moderate PITTCON 2005 Symposium -- Miniature Spectrometers for Process Analytical Chemistry: Towards a Spectroscopic Sensor

BILLERICA, Massachusetts (Dec. 17, 2004) – Axsun Technologies, Inc., a leading manufacturer of micro-optoelectronic products that improve quality, performance, and productivity in a variety of industries, announced today that Richard Crocombe, the company’s director of marketing for optical micro-instrumentation, will chair a PITTCON 2005 Symposium, “Miniature Spectrometers for Process Analytical Chemistry: Towards a Spectroscopic Sensor” on Thursday, March 3rd.

Over the past 30 years, optical spectrometers have shrunk dramatically in size: from the room-filling behemoths of the 1970s, to benchtop instruments of the 1980s, and portable units in the 1990s. However, until now, the available analytical tools have been too delicate, too big, and too costly to deploy effectively throughout most industrial process lines . A new generation of MEMS-based miniaturized spectrometers has recently emerged, and these new instruments – spectrometers-on-a-chip – can now be mounted directly on a process probe, by-pass loop, or pharmaceutical dryer and blender. This greatly facilitates installation and widespread deployment of process spectrometers, and leads towards their use as dedicated spectroscopic sensors.

The symposium will feature process analytical experts from the world’s two largest pharmaceutical companies – Pfizer Ltd.’s Martin Warman, on-line analysis team leader of the Global Process Analysis Support Group, and GlaxoSmithKline’s James W. Rydzak, investigator, Process Analytical Technology and Chemometrics Group. They will describe process analytical applications for miniature near-infrared spectrometers in both primary (active pharmaceutical ingredient) and secondary (tablet and solid dosage formats) manufacturing. These include ‘unit operations’ like blending and drying, as well as applications for mobile, or ‘point-of-use’ spectrometers. John Coates, a consultant and long-time champion and developer of micro-spectrometers, will describe a wide variety of applications for specially designed, or targeted, optical spectrometers, using a variety of technologies, and operating from the visible to the mid-infrared region of the spectrum. Mike Doyle, president and CEO of Axiom Analytical, a leading manufacturer of process probes and interfaces, will discuss the integration of miniature near-infrared spectrometers, probes and real-time chemometric software to produce process spectroscopic sensors. In addition to chairing the session, Dr. Crocombe will describe how adaptation of modern telecommunications technology leads to miniature and rugged near-infrared spectrometers with high-power tunable sources, and how these are now being deployed in chemical process analyses.

These breakthroughs in miniaturized spectroscopic instruments are enabling true process-analytical spectroscopy and will ultimately change pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturing so that quality is designed in as an integral part of the production process – from raw materials through manufacturing, to final packaging. The symposium will provide real-world examples of this new trend in manufacturing, which is being driven both by internal company cost-savings, quality, and productivity-enhancement programs, and regulatory initiatives, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Process Analytical Technologies (PAT) Initiative.

Updated information on the symposium may be found at: http://www.axsun.com/html/news_events_pittcon2005.htm

About Pittcon

PITTCON is the largest and most inclusive conference and exposition on laboratory science and instrumentation worldwide. Presented annually by the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, the conference features cutting-edge technical programs; informative short courses; an extensive exposition of laboratory equipment; and more, all designed for those in the laboratory sciences. For more information, visit www.pittcon.org.

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