Merck’s Latest Technologies Earn Industry Recognition for Accelerating Bioprocessing 4.0

Press Release

Darmstadt, Germany, November 10, 2020 — Merck, a leading science and technology company, today announced that its first-to-market Blazar™ platform from the BioReliance® portfolio has won R&D 100 and CPhI Awards for its ability to reduce testing times by up to 80 percent. Merck’s Bio4C™ ProcessPad, part of the company’s expanding BioContinuum™ Platform, also made the shortlist for the 2020 CPhI Awards. These awards honor the latest and best innovations, identifying the top products of the past year.

“Merck is providing advanced products and services that help bring important drug therapies to market, faster,” said Andrew Bulpin, head of Process Solutions, Life Science, at Merck. “Our advancements set the standard for how drug production is done today and shape the possibilities of tomorrow.”

Merck has been a key driver of the industry’s evolution to BioProcessing 4.0, which uses advanced digital and process technologies to offer a step change in productivity.

Merck’s Blazar™ platform earned the 2020 CPhI Pharma Award in the Analysis, Testing and Quality Control category. The first-to-market platform was also named a winner in the 2020 R&D 100 Awards’ Analytical/Test category. This technology represents a fundamental shift in biosafety testing within the industry toward rapid molecular methods, reducing testing time by up to 80 percent, or to as little as seven days. The platform can detect a broad range of viruses and is well-suited to cell line characterization and bulk-harvest lot release testing.

Merck’s Bio4C™ ProcessPad made the shortlist for the 2020 CPhI Pharma Awards’ Digital Innovation category. The Bio4C™ ProcessPad, part of the “Collect” dimension of the Bio4C™ Suite, is a browser-based platform that allows users to acquire, aggregate and analyze data from disparate sources such as equipment, batch records, databases and historians across the bioprocess. The Bio4C™ ProcessPad automates data acquisition and analysis tasks, freeing scientists and engineers to minimize the time to decision and action. With more than 65 years of experience in downstream processing, Merck offers an expansive range of technologies and services to help tackle downstream processing challenges from development to full-scale production.

Merck is committed to helping its customers deliver lifesaving therapies to more patients, faster, by increasing efficiencies and reducing costs.

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