Abstract
In frozen and lyophilized systems, the biological to be stabilized (e.g. therapeutic protein, biomarker, drug-delivery vesicle) and the cryo-/lyo-protectant should be co-localized for successful stabilization. During freezing and drying, many factors cause physical separation of the biological from the cryo-/lyo-protectant, called microheterogeneity (MH), which may result in poor stabilization efficiency. We have developed a novel technique that utilized confocal Raman microspectroscopy in combination with counter-gradient freezing to evaluate the effect of a wide range of freezing temperatures (-20