STEERLife and Manipal University to set up Centre of Excellence for life sciences industry

The Centre of Excellence will expose students and researchers to cutting edge technology capable of processing materials of the future without the limitations present in today’s solutions

STEERLife, creator of proprietary continuous processing technology and Manipal University have announced a partnership to establish a Centre of Excellence dedicated to helping the pharma and life sciences industry transition from conventional batch processing to continuous processing thereby providing time and cost efficiencies, reducing wastage and delivering greener process. The Centre, located at the Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MCOPS) campus, will develop solutions in highly diversified areas of life sciences that can effectively help the industry battle problems related to regulatory burden, reject rates, time and cost inefficiencies as well as limitations of working with sensitive and valuable materials.

“Under the terms of the partnership STEERLife will provide proprietary co-rotating twin screw technology platform and equipment, sponsor a doctoral research program and impart the requisite training. The Centre will also engage students pursuing their Masters, Doctoral and Postdoctoral studies on research based projects and mentor them in specific areas. As part of this engagement, the identified students will spend time at STEERLife’s Pharmaceutical Development Center in Bengaluru for hands-on industrial experience,” said Indu Bhushan, CTO, STEERLife.

Speaking of the partnership, Dr Babu Padmanabhan, MD and Chief Knowledge Officer, STEERLife and Founder & Promoter, STEER Group, said, “The Centre of Excellence provides a platform for the industry and academia to work together on developing innovative solutions that could transform millions of lives. Our proprietary continuous processing technology helps control shear, remove stagnation and effectively transform characteristics of bio-based and synthesised materials making pharma products, food, and nutritional products safer and more effective. The technology when coupled with some of the most intelligent minds from Manipal University, can truly help India deliver solutions that are world class and life changing”.

The Centre of Excellence will expose students and researchers to cutting edge technology capable of processing materials of the future without the limitations present in today’s solutions.

Dr H Vinod Bhat, Vice Chancellor, Manipal University, said, “Manipal Institutions have long been distinguished for excellence in education. We strive to provide our students with world-class facilities and real-time experiences that can help develop them into global leaders. The Centre of Excellence is one such initiative — where for the first time engineering and pharma sciences are coming together to give our students access to cutting-edge technology and expertise that has the potential to revolutionise life sciences. We are delighted to partner with STEERLife in making this a reality.”

The STEERLife Manipal Centre of Excellence is likely to commence operations on January 1, 2017.

EP News Bureau