FEI provides pharmaceutical companies with tailored solutions that shorten drug development and validation cycles and enable faster time-to-market for new products. Designed to enable rapid and intuitive monitoring of batch-to-batch variations for quick corrections and higher yields, FEI tools provide superior imaging and analysis for drug formulations and feature a broad range of easy-to-use imaging and analytical capabilities.
Assisting pharmaceutical manufacturers with performing drug excipient homogeneity, particle shape and size classification, and shelf-life analysis, FEI instruments specialize in determining sample structure and composition using a wide range of signals and detectors. Essential pharmaceutical production properties—such as polymorph, chemical and thermal stability, microbial contamination, and flow, compaction, and dissolution—can be monitored and analyzed during production for quick changes and fixes, eliminating delays, boosting yields, and accelerating a product's time-to-market.
Pharmaceutical Platforms
Built on the Quanta scanning electron microscope (SEM) series platform, FEI instruments provide a high level of automation for testing drug compositions and reactions. Our custom solutions feature:
- An environmentally controlled sample chamber that fully manages the conditions under which samples are examined. This feature enables researchers to perform dynamic experiments that permit observations of changes due to humidity, temperature, and mechanical force.
- A Peltier cold stage that allows cycling the relative humidity in the sample chamber which allows hydration and de-hydration of samples, while a heating stage enables high-temperature dynamic experiments for phase characterization or temperature stability studies during imaging.
- An optional Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) detector, which can map and study the composition of multiple layers, while the platform's unique Gaseous Analytical Detector (GAD) helps limit the “skirt” created by scattered electrons, improving the accuracy and spatial relationship of X-ray analysis.
- Powerful particle image analysis software from Malvern Instruments, developed and customized for the FEI Quanta SEM platform.