AstraZeneca China has been honoured as the 2015 Facility of the Year Awards Overall Winner at ISPE’s Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.
The winning project, AstraZeneca China’s market supply solid dose facility located in Taizhou, China, was built to manufacture five billion tablets of high-quality, affordable medicines each year for the China market. The 533,000ft2 facility was completed in a record time of 20 months, coming in 18% under budget and maintaining an exemplary safety record of 3.26 million hours worked without a recordable incident.The project represents Phase 1 of a planned three-phase, greenfield site development in the new pharmaceutical centre city of Taizhou.
'The Taizhou supply site project is the perfect representation of the FOYA programme,' said ISPE President and CEO John Bournas.
'AstraZeneca China’s mission to deliver high-quality pharmaceuticals to China’s growing population was carried out seamlessly through first-rate global engineering and operational organisation. It demonstrates visionary pharmaceutical excellence undertaken in an emerging market.'
The Taizhou plant was built to manufacture five billion tablets a year for the China market
AstraZeneca China’s project team impressed the judges with its clear strategic plan. The team incorporated lean design principles to eliminate operational inefficiencies and deliver optimum manufacturing performance. And, with a 99% active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) removal rate from API containing waste water, the facility far exceeded local environmental regulations.
The Taizhou supply site project was built to support the Chinese government’s 'Healthy China 2020' programme to provide universal healthcare access to all of China by 2020. With two additional phases expected, the Taizhou supply site has the potential to expand to nine billion tablets a year, placing AstraZeneca in a position to supply China with medicine for more than one billion people.
Applications for the 2016 Facility of the Year Awards are open until 23 November 2015. To apply, go to: www.FacilityoftheYear.org/submityourfacility