ISPE Awards 8 Innovative Pharma Facilities
By Katie Anderson, Chief Editor, Pharmaceutical Online
The Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) celebrates 20 years of innovation and excellence in 2025, and I had the pleasure of joining the celebration at the 2025 ISPE FOYA Banquet and Awards Celebration on Oct. 26, 2025.
After a cocktail hour, attendees in their finest gathered in the Richardson Ballroom of the Charlotte Convention Center to celebrate manufacturers who have brought unique concepts in pharma manufacturing to life in design, technology, and best practices.
After introductory remarks from master of ceremonies Dave DiProspero, ISPE President and CEO Mike Martin, FOYA planning committee chair Paula Casalino, and FOYA judges committee chair Parag Sane, the ceremony transitioned to the awards presentation. Following are each of the awards presented at the show, with details about their innovation included.
Innovation: Touchlight UK
Touchlight received the award for innovation not only for its novel approach to DNA manufacturing, but also for its conversion of a Victorian-era waterworks building into a GMP manufacturing site. Touchlight’s doggybone DNA (dbDNA) was developed to address the limitations of traditional plasmid DNA manufacturing such as slow production times, high costs, scale-up, and contamination risks. Its synthetic production of dbDNA uses rolling circle amplification powered by enzymes to create large quantities with high purity in less time.
Touchlight Team Accepting Its FOYA
To meet their production capacity, Touchlight needed to utilize its Morelands building in Hampton Waterworks. The building had housed its R&D department since 2015, but it was confined to a small part of the building. The 1852 building had been empty for 70 years and presented significant challenges, including 2-ft thick walls. The team was able to preserve original features of the building while creating a GMP biomanufacturing facility that produces over eight kilograms of dbDNA annually, tripling production capacity.
Operational Excellence: Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine Italy
The operational excellence award is all about improving efficiencies, overcoming challenges, promoting effectiveness, and organizing a project’s team to achieve successful outcomes, and J&J Innovative Medicine’s Flexible Bottle Packaging Line did just that.
Johnson & Johnson Italy Team Accepting Its FOYA
The line was originally designed for large to extra-large batches and needed to be redesigned for small to medium-size batches to answer a growing demand. The modular design consisted of 17 robots, with each module dedicated to specific primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging steps. The line can manage up to 500 SKUs and 170 packaging configurations and 30 semi-finished products without any format parts. In addition, changeover time went from six hours to 45 minutes.
Project Execution: Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine Ireland
Johnson & Johnson brought in another FOYA in operations, this time for project execution in its Cork, Ireland facility. The company sought to expand its manufacturing facility to create more capacity in fed-batch technology of biologic medicines.
Johnson & Johnson Ireland Team Accepting Its FOYA
The expansion included three 15,000 production reactors, associated seed reactors, and a centrifuge, increasing capacity by 80%. Notably, this expansion was being conducted on a live plant, and the expansion needed to avoid disrupting ongoing manufacturing and output—a large hurdle, indeed. Not only did the multifunctional team succeed in its expansion goals, but it completed the project 11 months ahead of schedule and earned a Silver Certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for the extension.
Pharma 4.0: CSL Behring Australia
The Pharma 4.0 award recognizes technological innovation and the ability to shift company culture to meet future advances. Project Aurora at CSL Behring’s Victoria Facility aimed to meet demand for plasma-derived therapies by doubling the site’s capacity and in the process become the largest fractionation facility in the world.
The project incorporated advanced manufacturing technologies such at automation, data analytics and robotics to achieve its goal in Facility F. For example, it implemented automated plasma debottling and debugging, enhanced data management, electronic batch records and process simulation. The expansion increased Facility F’s plasma production nine times its previous output, to produce 10 million liters of plasma each year. Although the increased capacity was impressive, the facility’s optimized processes also improved quality.
Social Impact-Unmet Medical Needs: Bayer Healthcare LLC USA
The social impact award honors a facility that not only incorporates a more sustainable facility design, but also one that increases patient access to life-saving drugs. Bayer HealthCare’s Cell Therapy Launch and Manufacturing Facility in Berkeley, California is the company’s first electric pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. It also was designed to bring cell therapies to life by combining development and commercial manufacturing with flexible, modular space for cell culture, viral transduction, and automated filling.
Bayer Healthcare Team Accepting Its FOYA
The facility can support large, automate, and closed processes for adherent allogeneic cell cultures. The building was designed to be mirrored into an attached adjacent facility to support future needs. Solar panels power nearly 15% of the building’s power, and rooftop heat pumps reduced indoor potable water by 51%.
Social Impact Sustainability Excellence: Sanofi Canada
Continuing with sustainable facility design, Sanofi was awarded the FOYA for Social Impact-Sustainability Excellence for its Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Plant in Toronto. To coincide with its expansion of two new production buildings, Sanofi established Building 99, or the Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Plant.
Sanofi Team Accepting Its FOYA
The plant treats wastewater to reduce its impact on the city and the plant’s water footprint in general. It recycles 500 m3 each day into boiler feed water rather than using Toronto’s water system. It also uses gravity-based flow to reduce energy consumption. A membrane operating system is used to filter water for cleaning equipment, and the facility boasts green roofs to promote biodiversity, provide thermal insulation and manage stormwater. Interestingly, the facility is designed to withstand a weather event.
Honorable Mention: Erbe Elektromedizin GmbH Germany
The honorable mention awards are for those projects that do not fit a specific category but still represent significant facility innovation. Erbe Elektromedizin earned the honorable mention award for Erbe 4.i, its facility that combines instrument development, certified manufacturing, and a training center for its advanced surgical systems. Because they have high hygienic standards, the instruments are assembled in a cleanroom environment.
Erbe Elektromedizin​ Team Accepting Its FOYA
The construction of the facility kept sustainability in mind by using regenerative materials like wood. It achieved KfW-40 efficiency house standard, and a photovoltaic systems provides the facility with 60% of its energy needs from solar panels on the roof.
Honorable Mention: United Therapeutics USA
Though the company jokes that it is running a “pig farm,” United Therapeautics is doing so much for than that. The Clinical Xenotransplantation Designated Pathogen Free (DPF) facility in Christiansburg, Virginia is raising pics, yes, but more importantly those designed to grow kidneys for xenotransplantation.
United Therapeutics Team Accepting Its FOYA
The facility includes a PDF barrier for spaces including procurement rooms, surgical suites, labs, offices, and building support spaces. It is said to take elements from a farm, a biologic pharmaceutical manufacturing facility and a surgical facility.
Overall: CSL Behring Australia
With so many innovative facilities in the running, it is surprising that the FOYA judging committee could pick an overall winner at all, but it was clear that CSL Behring Australia had earned the top spot. The facility combined several next-gen advanced technologies to increase production capacity to achieve an unprecedented level of plasma manufacturing.
Though the 2025 FOYA Awards have come to a close, the committee is looking for innovators in facility design and engineering to submit their work for 2026. If you think your team has what it takes, submissions for the 2026 FOYA are due Dec. 5, 2025.