{"id":7114,"date":"2017-05-19T13:33:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T17:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=7114"},"modified":"2017-05-22T13:14:25","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T17:14:25","slug":"toward-better-pharmaceuticals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2017\/05\/toward-better-pharmaceuticals\/","title":{"rendered":"Toward Better Pharmaceuticals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Illustration<\/a>
(Image: Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unlike traditional drugs, which have been manufactured in much the same way for more than a century, purely through chemistry, biopharmaceuticals are drugs made in living cells.<\/p>\n

For example, they\u2019re the innovative monoclonal antibodies that have made great strides against cancer in recent years and the vaccines such as the one produced each season for the flu.<\/p>\n

Producing drugs in living systems has given new hope for treating diseases for which there were previously no effective therapies. However, says Michael Betenbaugh<\/a>, professor in the Whiting School\u2019s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering<\/a>, production can be challenging and expensive.<\/p>\n

As an expert in these techniques, Betenbaugh was tapped last year to co-direct the Advanced Mammalian Biomanufacturing Innovation Center<\/a> (AMBIC). A collaboration between the National Science Foundation<\/a> and four universities\u2014 including Johns Hopkins<\/a>\u2014AMBIC\u2019s goal is to develop new technologies to improve biomanufacturing of drugs from living organisms, such as Chinese hamster ovaries or other mammalian cells.<\/p>\n

Betenbaugh\u2019s work doesn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

In early 2016, when the National Institute of Standards and Technology<\/a> launched an \u201copen topic\u201d competition for a new institute to solve any industry-relevant manufacturing challenges, he was up for a new challenge. Working with longtime collaborator Kelvin Lee at the University of Delaware, also a director of AMBIC, the two assembled fellow academics and industry experts to develop a proposal. By mid-December, NIST announced the team\u2019s idea\u2014the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals<\/a> (NIIMBL)\u2014as the winner.<\/p>\n

Unlike AMBIC, which takes on high-risk, early-stage projects, NIIMBL will focus on finding the best ways to implement ideas that have already proven useful in the lab. With $70 million in federal funding and another $180 million investment from other stakeholders, the new institute will combine the expertise of Johns Hopkins and other academic institutions, industry, and government organizations to fine-tune existing biopharmaceutical manufacturing techniques.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this means for patients is the potential for new, better, and less expensive biopharmaceutical drugs to be accessible sooner,\u201d Betenbaugh says. \u201cIt\u2019s all about making health care more effective and efficient in our country through innovative manufacturing practices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Producing drugs in living systems has given new hope for treating diseases for which there were previously no effective therapies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[174,1234,1238,1242,1246,1250,1254,1258,1262],"class_list":["post-7114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-at-wse","tag-department-of-chemical-and-biomolecular-engineering","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-biopharmaceuticals","tag-michael-betenbaugh","tag-advanced-mammalian-biomanufacturing-innovation-center","tag-ambic","tag-kelvin-lee","tag-national-institute-for-innovation-in-manufacturing-biopharmaceuticals","tag-niimbl","issue-summer-2017"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nToward Better Pharmaceuticals - JHU Engineering Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2017\/05\/toward-better-pharmaceuticals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Toward Better Pharmaceuticals - 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