Facility of the year: 2013 winners announced
pharmafile | February 4, 2013 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â Biogen, MedImmune, Merck, Novartis, RocheÂ
Three US and three European manufacturing plants have been selected as category winners for the annual Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) out of 27 entries.
The category winners are Biogen Idec, Roche, Medimmune, Merck & Co, Morphotek and Novartis, with the overall victor due to be announced at the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) annual meeting later this year.
Biogen Idec has won the Facility Integration category for its flexible volume manufacturing (FVM) project at its plant in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, US. The project centred on the creation of an adaptable platform for making small and large-volume batches of material intended for clinical trials, and features a hybrid network of fixed and single-use equipment.
Roche took first place in the Project Execution category for its Technical Research and Development (TR&D) Building 97 in Basel, Switzerland, which was set up to consolidate the Roche research and development groups for oral solid dosage and liquid parenteral dosage forms for clinical studies into one facility.
AstraZeneca unit MedImmune won the Equipment Innovation award for its UK Automation Upgrade Project in Speke, Liverpool, UK, which the FOYA panel said drives “a paradigm shift in egg-based vaccine manufacturing”. The MedImmune team adopted a system engineering methodology to redesign each discrete processing step into a fully integrated and automated production train, boosting yields by 15% whilst cutting labour requirements and wastage.
Merck & Co was given the honours in the Operational Excellence category for its Vaccine and Biologics Sterile Facility (VBSF) Project in Carlow, Ireland, its first green-field sterile processing facility built outside the US. The plant is designed to support Merck’s long-range biologics and vaccine pipeline.
Eisai subsidiary Morphotek has won the Sustainability category for its pilot plant in Exton, Pennsylvania, US, a brownfield development which reclaimed previously contaminated land and features an array of sustainable features, including solar power, water conservation and a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system that is 90% more efficient than traditional systems.
Finally, Novartis has taken the award for Process Innovation for its US flu cell culture facility in Holly Springs, North Carolina, US. The plant uses a deep tank mammalian cell culture technology to make the vaccines rather than conventional egg-based systems.
The overall Facility of the Year award will be presented at ISPE’s annual meeting on 3-6 November in Washington DC.
Phil Taylor
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