Increasing The Supply Of USP Purified Water At Pfizer

The Customer
Pfizer Inc. is the world's largest pharmaceutical company. It discovers, develops, manufactures and markets leading prescription medicines, for humans and animals, and many of the world's best-known consumer brands. Its site in Sandwich, Kent, where approximately 3,500 people work, is the company's European R&D headquarters and also includes a significant manufacturing operation.

The Needs
Pfizer had a requirement for a supply of USP purified water to laboratories, primary and secondary production, and cleaning in place (CIP) users across its R&D and manufacturing site at Sandwich — a total of 21m3/h purified water being circulated in over two kilometers of stainless piping.

Most of this requirement was met by ELGA Process Water's ORION® which features fully automatic hot water sanitization of the membrane units and pipework, and is fully compliant with the latest GAMP and cGMP requirements, as well as those of the ISPE Baseline® Pharmaceutical Engineering Guide. However, the requested 21m3/h exceeded the capacity of the standard range of products and called for a tailor-made solution.

Pfizer also wanted to ensure the required flow rate of purified water could be provided at all times, even during maintenance or equipment failure.