Particle Engineering for Delivery of Biopharmaceuticals

06/23/2025

Biopharmaceuticals have established a significant presence in the pharmaceutical industry, offering highly specific and effective therapeutic options. However, ensuring their stability during processing, storage, and administration remains a major challenge. While biopharmaceuticals are generally more stable in the solid state, additional processing can compromise their integrity. Although freeze drying (FD) remains the gold standard technology for drying these molecules, particle engineering technologies, such as spray drying (SD), spray freeze drying (SFD), and electrostatic spray drying (ESD), allow to control particle size and morphology, which can be leveraged to target alternative delivery routes. Despite this potential, these technologies are often overlooked due to limited data on the impact of processing stresses on biopharmaceutical integrity. This thesis explores how particle engineering technologies affect the critical quality attributes of proteins and RNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles, particularly in terms of stability, particle morphology, and suitability for alternative delivery routes, such as inhalation. The importance of optimizing both processing conditions and formulations to reduce processing impact and maintain stability has been demonstrated. By comparing particle engineering technologies with FD as the reference technology, this work highlights the advantages of these technologies in producing particles with tailored characteristics, while still maintaining biopharmaceutical stability. Overall, this work provides a comprehensive perspective on the challenges and solutions associated with particle engineering technologies for biopharmaceuticals, bridging the gap between the therapeutic potential of these products and their effective administration, bringing us closer to unlocking their full potential in the fight against diseases.

Authors in the community:

• 

  S

  Susana Isabel Cardoso Farinha

  ist178424

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  M

  Miguel Ângelo Joaquim Rodrigues

  ist31579

chemical-engineering - Chemical engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico