Think : Thermal : Part Two : Uses and Benefits to the biopharmaceutical industry

Uses for Bio-Pharma

Uses for biopharmaceuticals include the manufacture of vaccines, blood and blood components, allergenics that treat allergies, body cells and tissues, living cells used in cell therapies, gene therapies, and recombinant therapeutic proteins.

Bio-pharma companies already use microbial cells, such as recombinant E. coli, to create effective vaccines. They can also create a variety of biopharmaceuticals by cultivating mammalian cell lines as regulated by Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and regulatory agencies.

Benefits of Bio-Pharma

Unlike many traditional medications that have a chemical structure not found in the human body, biopharmaceuticals drugs are structurally the same as human compounds. This structural similarity gives biopharmaceuticals the potential to cure diseases rather than merely treat symptoms.

Biopharmaceuticals also present fewer side effects because of their specificity, unlike conventional drugs that affect multiple systems. Heparin (an anticoagulant blood thinner that prevents the formation of blood clots) acts at several sites within the clotting system, for example, while administering bio-pharma clotting factors can correct a problem occurring at a specific point in the clotting system.

Bio-pharma is changing how doctors treat diabetes, cancer, and other diseases because it allows clinicians to tailor treatment to the specific medical problems experienced by each patient. Biotechnology allows researchers to use cell fusion, DNA-recombinant technologies, and other technologies to modify treatments specifically for individual diseases.

Biopharmaceuticals are already widely available to patients in the United States. Enbrel treats rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis, and other immune diseases, while Humira reduces signs and symptoms of moderate to severe RA in adults. The biopharmaceutical Gardasil protects against diseases caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) while Remicade reduces the signs and symptoms of Crohn's disease. Biopharmaceutical treatments for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer are already saving or improving thousands of lives in the United States.

Emerging biopharmaceutical technologies include the manufacture of monoclonal antibodies, which are identical immune cells that are clones of a unique parent cell, the design of chemically defined cells, and genome-based technologies that can improve the vaccine manufacturing process and create new cancer treatments.

The greatest potential for bio-pharma is in gene therapy. Conditions associated with rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer, develop as the result of defective or mutated genes. In gene therapy, scientists replace defective genes with healthy ones to treat existing disease or to prevent disease from developing later.

Bio-pharma will forever change how doctors treat diseases, and future patients will benefit from biopharmaceuticals in ways we can now only imagine. Biopharmaceuticals may one day eradicate many diseases that now plague humankind and shorten lives, such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

Thermal Product Solutions (TPS) is proud to be a supplier to the bio-pharma industry. TPS designs and manufactures industrial and laboratory ovens and furnaces, as well as environmental temperature cycling and stability test chambers. We carry product brands leading the way in biopharmaceuticals, including Blue M, Gruenberg, and Tenney. The other TPS brands that are used in many other industries are Baker Furnace, Lindberg/MPH, and Wisconsin Oven.