UltraPAT: Enabling Quantitative Measurement of Low-Dose APIs
The UltraPAT is a deep-UV fluorescence sensor developed by Photon Systems in collaboration with the Enabling Technologies Consortium (ETC)—a group of Process Analytical Technology (PAT) experts representing more than a dozen leading pharmaceutical companies. Together, they set out to solve one of the industry’s most persistent PAT challenges: achieving reliable sensitivity and quantitative measurements below 2% wt/wt.
UltraPAT delivers quantitative blend uniformity measurements for low-dose, high-potency active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at concentrations below 0.5% wt/wt, enabling process insight and control where conventional technologies often reach their limits.
While UV fluorescence has long shown promise for pharmaceutical applications, previous implementations have been constrained by instrument instability, signal drift, and insufficient robustness for continuous process monitoring. UltraPAT overcomes these limitations through a fundamentally different approach, leveraging design principles and operational experience derived from spaceflight instrumentation developed for trace organic detection on Mars.
The result is a highly stable, quantitative PAT platform that brings the sensitivity of deep-UV fluorescence to real-time pharmaceutical manufacturing environments.
Key Features
Real Time Feed Frame Monitoring
>10Hz spectral acquisition
High Sensitivity
< 0.5% wt/wt with <0.1% change detection
High Selectivity
Wide spectral range from 260 - 600 nm
Pharma compliant
Probes at 100 -200 mm, materials and size compliant with industry feed-frames
ChemCal
A trace chemical detector like the TraC is acceptable for P.A.T. and many other applications only if you can accurately calibrate its performance and generate reproducible chemical concentration curves. That is why we created the ChemCal.
Pharmaceutical Cleaning Validation
Detecting and quantifying trace residue concentrations of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), excipients, and washes during cleaning validation procedures on pharmaceutical manufacturing equipment is one of the single largest costs associated with the manufacture of pharmaceutical drugs.
Food Equipment Cleaning Validation
Traditional methods of food equipment cleaning validation include microbial assays and visual inspection. However, these techniques have limitations. Using deep UV fluorescence techniques, Photon Systems handheld detectors are capable of detecting trace organic residues as low as pg/cm2 and biological contamination less than hundreds of cells or spores.
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PHONE
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