Technologies
Xellia is a leading producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), specialized in fermented antibiotics, and we are recognized for our expertise in fermentation, specialized recovery and purification technologies.
Please find below a brief introduction to the technologies used at our manufacturing sites:
Fermentation
A fermentation process is a large scale microbial process where a specific microorganism is grown under strictly controlled conditions in a mixture of e.g. ground cereals, starch and inorganic salts in water. During growth, the microorganism produces the antibiotic, which is later isolated from the fermentation broth, purified and dried.
Purification
The antibiotic is isolated from the fermentation broth during a number of advanced purification steps which can involve ion-exchange, filtration and e.g. fast flow chromatography.After purification, the isolated, pure antibiotic is ready to undergo a drying process before it can be weight out in sales containers and analyzed in our Quality Control Laboratory.
Freeze-drying
Freeze-drying, or lyophilization, is the removal of water content from the frozen dissolved antibiotic. The dehydration is carried out under a vacuum with the antibiotic solidly frozen during the process. The freeze-drying process runs for several hours.After freeze-drying, the antibiotic is homogenized to form a powder.
In addition to our fermented APIs, Xellia is developing APIs based on chemical synthesis.
A chemical synthesized API is manufactured based on complex and multiple, strictly controlled chemical reaction steps. Both Fluticasone and Mometasone, which we manufacture, are synthesized APIs.
