News Release
November 18, 2019
Merck Wins R&D 100 Award for First-to-Market Biopharma Purification Innovation
- Eshmuno® CP-FT Resin yields 10x higher capacities than traditional methods
- First cation exchange resin developed for flow-through removal of aggregates using frontal chromatography
Darmstadt, Germany, November 18, 2019 — Merck today announced it has received a prestigious R&D 100 Award for its Eshmuno® CP-FT Resin, a first-to-market product used in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The R&D 100 Awards honor the 100 most innovative and significant technologies introduced in the past year. Merck has received 10 R&D 100 Awards in the past seven years.
“This award recognizes our innovation in research and development for a product that helps biomanufacturers bring new therapies to patients faster and more cost effectively,” said Udit Batra, CEO, Life Science at Merck. “Congratulations to our extended teams, who live our purpose every day by solving the toughest problems in life science in collaboration with the global scientific community.”
Aggregates are impurities in monoclonal antibody drugs that can reduce efficacy and therefore pose significant risk to patients. These impurities are challenging to remove in the purification process of drug manufacturing. Merck’s Eshmuno® CP-FT resin is a tool that removes aggregates, delivering capacities 10 times higher than traditional bind/elute chromatography. The significant reduction in resin and buffer volume results in a smaller manufacturing footprint as well as lower costs. The Eshmuno® CP-FT resin is part of Merck’s BioContinuum™ Polishing Platform.
The R&D 100 Awards are among the most prestigious innovation awards in the world, honoring research and development pioneers. Merck representatives will accept the award at the 57th Annual R&D 100 Awards gala in San Francisco, California on December 5.
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About Merck
Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science, and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene-editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries.
Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck’s technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics.