Week 2! This week I am at Tergus Pharma, a pharmaceutical company that specializes in topical pharmaceuticals. When first arrived, we received a comprehensive tour from the facilities manager. We saw the stock room and multiple labs. We also saw a lot of equipment (very expensive equipment) such as HPLC (high-performance liquid and gas chromatography) machines, 10 kg, 15 kg, 150kg mixers, and more mixers, as well as many other high-tech pieces of equipment. We also saw a room, under heavy security, where drugs are tested for long spans of time to see their durability. We didn’t get any names, but we were told they test the deterioration of some pretty hardcore drugs. After a tour of the rest of the facility, we were introduced to our mentor for the day, Srikanth.
Srikanth helped us make hydrogel by ourselves. First, we took extremely pure water (287 g) and kept it mixing. Then, we added the polymer (also called carbomer) that get hydrated by the water (1.5 g polymer). Glycerine was also added (10.0 g). We mixed it for 30 minutes and then added a trolamine/water mix (1.5 + 2.2 g) to change the pH of the mixture from 3 to 5-7, a pH that is skin-friendly. Then, Srikanth helped us package up our gel into tubes so we could take it home.
