Modern Chemistry Podcast

Jeff Sperry - Safer, earlier.

Episode Summary

Episode 7 of the modern Chemistry podcast is the first one recorded since the start of the global COVID 19 pandemic. Jeff Sperry and I talk about how safety analysis is vital earlier in process development, specifically drug discovery, rather than waiting until you have a new process and being told it's not safe. We also discuss the impact of the pandemic on his work & working practices at the beginning. So, if you’ve had enough virus chat, scroll through the first five minutes after the intro

Episode Notes

One minor clarification  Jeff asked me to make - at around 7:15  he mentions that Vertex  does not do any commercial manufacturing in-house.  Vertex does not perform in-house, commercial scale production of drug substances.

You will hear the following terms used during the interview.  I’ve included some descriptions and links to deeper reading. 

• Vertex - Vertex Pharmaceuticals - https://www.vrtx.com/
• Exotherm – An exothermic reaction is one that gives off heat.  The phrase exotherm is often used as a shortened form of ‘exothermic reaction’.  Unwanted exotherms in process safety cause a potential safety hazard, as they can potentially heat a reaction, beyond the safe limits of available cooling.
• DSC – Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) is a technique for thermal analysis, in which, the difference in the amount of heat required to increased the temperature of a sample is measured as a function of temperature. It can be used to determine a number of properties of a sample.
• TSU – The Thermal Screening Unit (TSU) is a system used to screen materials for potential hazards associated with heating.
• ARC – Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (ARC) is a system used to measure heat generating characteristics of reactions, or reaction components at a range to temperatures.Other reaction data can be determined with this tool
• GLP Tox Lot. - A Good Laboratory Toxicology lot is a batch of a drug, or drug like material prepared during drug development with the intention of testing safety (and other) properties.
• API – The Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) is the drug element of a medicine. The drug would be, for example, diluted down with saline solution to make a medicine ready for injection.
• Buller Empowerment - https://bullerempowerment.com/
• Taylor Howard – As Jeff mentioned, he follows Taylor on LinkedIn – she’s at https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorhow

If you want to connect with Jeff, or find out more about his lab, you can find:

On LinkedIn, Jeff can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreybsperry/

On Twitter, Jeff goes by @SafeChem79 - https://twitter.com/SafeChem79

Our theme music is "Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

Music from https://filmmusic.io

License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Connect with me (Paul) at https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulorange/

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