Better, cheaper prescription drugs are on the horizon in the US

Continuous manufacturing won’t make sense for every pharma company or drug product, but it could revolutionise the industry all the same

22 July 2023 – 07:19 The Editors

One 800-square-foot laboratory at Rutgers University in central New Jersey is equipped to make more than 1-billion prescription pills a year. Its manufacturing process is faster, cheaper and more precise than traditional methods, potentially reducing reliance on factories outside the US. The technology also can be used to make drugs in shortage, including cancer treatments. Why, then, isn’t this major manufacturing innovation more widespread?

Most drugs are made using batch manufacturing, a laborious, multistep process that stretches across continents. Storage and shipping between stages can compromise quality. Reliance on overseas manufacturers, meanwhile, is risky: About 80% of key drug ingredients are made outside the US, predominantly in China and India, where US regulators have uncovered serious breaches of manufacturing standards. Should China cut off pharmaceutical exports, as some policymakers have warned, the domestic stockpile of life-saving medication would run o…

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