Facilities Featured Articles

41. WIB Profile: Sponsors And CMOs Require Production Flexibility 5/19/2015

    Drug manufacturers today are increasingly demanding flexibility in their manufacturing processes. So who better to provide those solutions than someone who has spent her career dealing with change.

     

42. Top Single-Use Suppliers Make Standardized Equipment A Reality – Part 2 5/8/2015

    Industry experts offer the benefits of standardized single-use equipment to both suppliers and users, as well as how it addresses some of the biggest objections to equipment standardization, as well as offer insight from the eyes of a user.

43. ISPE Set To Address Drug Shortages At Annual Meeting 10/6/2014

    Drug shortages continue to plague the pharmaceutical industry. According to a GAO report on shortages, dated February 2014, the number of shortages continues to increase in the U.S., as well as around the world. In 2007 there were 154 shortages, 114 new shortages and 40 ongoing from a prior year. In 2012, there were 456 shortages, 195 news ones and 261 ongoing. As of June 30, 2013, there were already 73 new shortages and 288 ongoing.

    The public health importance of these shortages cannot be overemphasized. Shortage situations have included zinc for parenteral nutrition in neonates and premature infants, doxorubicin for ovarian and other cancers, and Propofol for anesthesia.

    Clearly something needs to be done. “ISPE believes efforts to address this complex and multi-faceted problem of drug shortages requires close collaboration and clear communication between the pharma industry and global health authorities,” says Francois Sallans, VP and chief quality officer for Johnson & Johnson, and presenter at the 2014 ISPE-FDA CGMP Conference. “We believe The Drug Shortages Prevention Plan being assembled by ISPE will provide guidance to pharma and global health authorities to manage drug shortages more effectively. But more importantly we are looking into ways for the two groups to manage these shortages more proactively as well. That is an important component that we need to have in place in order to make these shortages rare, but short-lived.”

44. New Technologies Drive Efficiencies In Drug Processing And Packaging 9/24/2014

    By Julie Ackerman, senior director PR and communications, PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies

    Pharmaceutical manufacturers continually seek solutions to speed products to market, ramp up production in times of outbreaks or increased demand, protect their brand integrity throughout the supply chain and streamline efficiencies to remain highly cost-effective. Of course, the critical need to ensure patient safety makes rigorous quality control and precision in pharmaceutical manufacturing incredibly important.

45. 5 Management Strategies For Life Sciences Real Estate & Facilities 7/31/2014

    In a new paradigm of the life sciences industry, corporate real estate can be a source of top-line value.

46. Innovation In Drug Delivery To Meet Patient Needs 7/23/2014

    Today’s patients are being afforded access to life-saving medicines wherever they are, thanks to innovation in drug delivery methods and the efforts of medicine manufacturers that are shifting operations to produce easier-to-use delivery systems as well as medicines that are more customized to meet the needs of specific patient groups. 

47. Software Solutions For Future Challenges Of Pharmaceutical Plants 3/6/2014

    With COMOS, Siemens delivers a comprehensive software solution for the optimal integration of engineering and operation.

48. Out With The Old, In With The New: GSK's Smart Workplace 2/24/2014

    By eliminating the confines of the traditional workspace, companies can encourage better employee interaction and collaboration. Will this be the key for an industry counting on innovation to lead it into the future?

49. Prevent Drug Development Costs With The KISS Principle 1/7/2014

    Ever heard of the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle? The general idea behind it is that systems perform best when the design is simple, not complex. My favorite example demonstrating the application of KISS, as well as the impact of failing to do so, is captured in a scene in the 1995 movie Apollo 13. An incident necessitates three astronauts use the lunar module (LM), a ship built just for landing on the moon, as a lifeboat to survive.

50. Shire's $120 Million Single-Use Gamble 12/12/2013

    Project Atlas is a 200,000 square foot biologics manufacturing facility. This facility is unique because its entire upstream line utilizes single-use systems, but what’s more interesting is the plant $210 million dollar price tag is $127.6 million shy of the company’s annual profit.