INTERPHEX 2006: Baxter BioPharma Solutions’ Indiana Plant Wins Facility of the Year Award

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Ultimately, the entire point of the elaborate exhibits and informative breakout sessions found within the INTERPHEX 2006 pharmaceutical conference is about the successful construction, validation and operation of drug research and manufacturing facilities. As a result and to honor this fact, each year a team from INTERPHEX, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine carefully considers the ultimate in newly constructed state-of-the-art pharmaceutical facilities from around the globe. Judged by a team of industry professionals, the annual award is granted to the project that best illustrates the practical use of new technologies that optimizes product quality while reducing production costs. This year’s winner is the new Baxter BioPharma Solutions Phase IV Vial and Syringe Filling plant in Bloomington, Indiana.

Located at Baxter’s full-service contract manufacturing site in Bloomington, Indiana, the new facility has doubled the company’s capacity for pre-filled syringes by providing two additional syringe filling lines capable of filling 35,000 syringes per hour. The project also added a new vial filling line, a lyophilization suite, new research and development laboratories, as well as additional QC/QA laboratories. In Bloomington, Baxter offers complete form, fill, and finish services for a wide assortment of sterile product dosage forms. These products include solutions, suspensions, and freeze-dried powders encompassing human and veterinary small molecule, biologic, biotech, vaccine, and protein pharmaceuticals. With some estimates judging that 50% of new drugs currently in development are insoluble, Baxter is now in place to fill the anticipated increase in demand.

The other finalists for this year’s award included the following facilities:

· Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Dublin, Ireland
· AstraZeneca in Macclesfield, United Kingdom
· Janssen Pharmaceuticals in Geel, Belgium
· Daiichi Asubio Pharma Company, LTD in Tokyo, Japan

This year’s panel of judges included an impressive array of leading industry professionals, experienced in pharmaceutical engineering, construction management, and manufacturing. The entirely volunteer panel included:

· Peter Bigelow - Judging Panel Chair - Senior VP Consumer Healthcare Manufacturing, Wyeth
· Tony Felicia - VP R&D Administration, AstraZeneca
· Christian Ilsoe - Vice President, Quality & Validation Assurance, NNE A/S
· Brian H. Lange, P.E. - Director – Sterile & Packaging Operations Engineering, Merck
· Raymond H. Scherzer - Senior Vice President of Engineering, Technology and Capital Management in Global Manufacturing & Supply, GlaxoSmithKline
· Ulrich Rudow - VP Worldwide Engineering and Real Estate, Johnson & Johnson
· Andrew A. Signore, PE, PMP, DBIA - President, IPS
· Andy Skibo - VP Corp. Engineering and Capital Production, Amgen

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