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EnWave Corporation Announces Major Advancement in Pharmaceutical Dehydration Technology
(via Thenewswire.ca)
About this update from Enwave Corporation
[{"type":"text","content":"EnWave Corporation Announces Major Advancement in Pharmaceutical Dehydration Technology\n\n(via Thenewswire.ca)\nVancouver, B.C. - September 18 2008 - EnWave Corporation (TSX-V: ENW) (\"EnWave\" or \"the Company\") today announced that it has made a major innovation in its Radiant Energy Vacuum (\"REV\") pharmaceutical dehydration technology to allow for a significant reduction in the moisture content of dried vaccine products.\n\nThe new technology, called freezeREV, provides high-speed live pharmaceutical dehydration with the potential for lower energy and processing costs than conventional technology being used by the industry today. Vaccines dehydrated using freezeREV technology also had lower residual moisture content than vaccines processed using EnWave's bioREV dehydration technology. Moisture rates between 3 and 3.5 per cent, considered an acceptable industry standard, have now been achieved using the single-vial freezeREV prototype. EnWave has also filed a patent application for freezeREV covering both the technology and the processing method.\n\nVaccines dried to a low moisture content would be capable of withstanding longer storage at higher room temperatures without losing a significant amount of live activity (\"bioactivity\"), and therefore effectiveness. Production of dried live pharmaceuticals, such as vaccines, storable at room temperatures would be considered a major industry breakthrough. Dried vaccines with long shelf-life could be shipped worldwide, stored without the need for expensive, constant refrigeration, and stockpiled to protect against pandemic diseases and bioterrorism. The current \"gold standard\" for dehydrating many liquid pharmaceuticals is freeze drying (\"lyophilization\"). This process is expensive, time consuming and often results in significant loss of bioactivity during dehydration.\n\nEnWave has been working with its collaboration partner Aridis Pharmaceuticals, LLC (\"Aridis) of San Jose, California to determine the feasibility of dehydrating vaccines and antibodies using bioREV technology which rapidly dehydrates liquid pharmaceuticals at temperatures above freezing. In March 2008, the Company announced that Aridis had discovered a higher residual moisture content using bioREV than what is typically considered optimum in conventional freeze dried vaccines.\n\nAs a result of these find...