From the Corner Office: Filtravate

“We can’t change the whole world, but let’s try to work to make our corner of it better.” 

COVID-19 didn't happen in a vacuum, as our globe has several comorbidities occurring in tandem; global warming, clean water shortage, and societal unrest --- to name a few. Within these overarching global disruptions, at Filtravate, we believe there is an opportunity for our technology to make some positive impact.

At Filtravate, the change starts from the smallest building blocks – nanosized building blocks, to be exact. Our goal is to impact sectors such as pharmaceutical bioprocessing for life-saving therapeutics and water treatment processes to solve global challenges around accessible, clean drinking water. We will do this by helping address a critical step in these processes. Specifically, our technology can significantly reduce widespread membrane filtration inefficiencies due to membrane fouling.

Our templating membrane fabrication technology is a sustainable solution to tackle the issue of membrane biofouling and reduce costs. The membrane industry has focused most of its effort on improving membrane antifouling on surface modification/coating after the membrane has been fabricated. An afterthought, so to speak. This approach is both costly and inefficient for several reasons. Nothing we do at Filtravate is an afterthought; our membranes have built-in antifouling properties woven into the building blocks of our templating structure.

Filtravate has made significant progress since its formation in the spring of 2020. The team has tested a few dozen formulations, built and tested more than 500 membranes over the past 18 months, and created two commercial membrane prototypes to address market needs. These needs include cost reduction and higher efficiencies. Business leadership led an extensive market analysis of the filtration membrane space to identify a beachhead market for our technology. The data demonstrated that Filtravate's value proposition was best positioned in the $144.25 billion virus filtration market segment, specifically monoclonal antibody (mAb) and mRNA production. Our technology is one piece of the puzzle to recognizing greater throughputs and yields through a conversion from batch bioprocessing to continuous bioprocessing systems. Continuous bioprocessing systems are the future standard for the industry.

Our technology and progress have attracted the attention of venture capital groups, prominent researchers in the field, and leading industry integrators. We continue to build the momentum and form relationships that can lead to strategic partnerships in scaling up our fabrication technology and facilitate bioprocess market adoptions.

An exciting recent development for Filtravate was establishing a pilot facility in partnership with New Mexico State University. Opening this spring, the facility started producing the ultrafiltration membrane samples (FIL-V1) to meet the mAb market demand. FIL-V1 membrane will provide viral filtration for mAb production through size exclusion methods eliminating concerns of the parvovirus impacting product quality. Our business operations manager, Ben Neville, will lead this lab, who joined the company in February 2021 through an entrepreneur development internship sponsored by NMSU. The facility will optimize production procedures and allow for samples to be distributed to initial potential testing/validation partners.

In other recent events, our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Reza Foudazi, has accepted a position with Oklahoma University. While we miss seeing Dr. Foudazi more regularly in Las Cruces, his new position affords Filtravate a different kind of access to the scientific community as research efforts are continued with a focus on water treatment applications for our company. Norman is a short drive away from Oklahoma City, where promising mAb processing research, development, and manufacturing companies have taken root in previous years. It was a genuinely serendipitous move that affords us multiple strategic benefits.

It's an exciting time for Filtravate. The momentum of 2021 continues to build in 2022. Our focus may be narrow, some might say "nano", but our goals for the company continue to be high & wide.

To learn more please visit filtravate.com