Waters, University of Delaware form bioprocessing collaboration

Waters Corporation, a specialty measurement company, and the University of Delaware, have reached a five-year research partnership to design new analytical solutions for bioprocessing and biomanufacturing. The collaboration is powered by an innovation and research lab known as “Immerse Delaware” that is slated to open in early 2022 at the University of Delaware Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) campus. Waters will be partnering with students and faculty to determine and tackle important obstacles facing the biopharma sector.

The Immerse Delaware Lab will include a purpose-built research test bed, with a focus on leveraging liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and other technologies to support bioprocess engineers’ empirical data in the fields of process and informatics. Initial projects at Immerse Delaware will aim to gain a better understanding of novel schemes to quantify and possibly reduce process-related impurities from uncontrolled glycosylation, which negatively affects drug efficacy.

“Through this collaboration, researchers from both Waters and University of Delaware will identify and develop solutions that can better characterize biological manufacturing processes and drive improvements in quality, yields, efficiency and process control,” says Dr. Udit Batra, president and CEO of Waters Corporation. “Our partnership eventually aspires to decouple the product from the process, which can significantly accelerate the delivery of higher quality medicines to patients.”