The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has announced the 2019 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Category Winners at its 2019 Europe Annual Conference in Dublin, Ireland.
Awardees include:
- Celgene International II (Sustainability)
- Eli Lilly and Company (Process Innovation)
- Janssen Cilag SpA (Equipment Innovation)
- Moderna (Facility of the Future)
- Kantonsapotheke Zürich (Operational Excellence)
- Pfizer (Facility Integration and Project Execution)
The FOYA’s judges’ panel has also awarded Honorable Mentions to:
- AveXis
- Takeda (formerly Shire)
FOYA is the premier global awards program recognising innovation and creativity in manufacturing facilities serving the regulated healthcare industry. The award-winning projects selected by the FOYA program set the standard for pharmaceutical facilities of the future by demonstrating excellence in facility design, construction, and operations.
John Bournas, ISPE CEO and President, said: “We are pleased to spotlight the dedication of these companies who epitomise the future of global innovation and facility design.”
2019 Facility of the Year Category Awards Winners
Celgene International II is the winner of the Sustainability Category Award for its Green Fairy Project (La Fée Verte) at its manufacturing facility in Couvet, Switzerland. One of the main objectives for the new facility was to implement an environmentally responsible and sustainable site in-line with their corporate principles.
Eli Lilly and Company won the Process Innovation Category Award for its IE2 Small Volume Continuous Facility in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland. This innovative facility and the process design concepts incorporated advance the industry in three specific areas; process analytical technologies and advanced automation, development of new continuous technologies, and significant improvement in process safety and environmental impacts.
The Equipment Innovation Category was awarded to Janssen Cilag SpA for their project Dosepak Equipment which entailed the design, installation, and qualification of state-of-art equipment at their manufacturing facility in Latina, Italy. The facility integrated advanced robotics and automation into a standard packaging process steps and enabled lean, flexible, and sustainable manufacturing.
Moderna is the winner of the Facility of the Future Category Award for its New cGMP Clinical Manufacturing Facility in Norwood, Massachusetts USA which was designed to be highly flexible adaptable and capable of manufacturing both for clinic and research. The digital production environment was designed to enable high throughput with a robust and diverse set of products.
Kantonsapotheke Zürich won the Operational Excellence Award Category for its New Compounding Pharmacy for Canton Zürich Hospitals—a leap forward for hospital pharmacy compounding operations. The project demonstrates a transformational step in hospital compounding operations and establishes a new norm for future facilities in this important step of patient therapy.
The Facility Integration Category was awarded to Pfizer for the Pfizer Biotechnology Center built in the Hangzhou Economic Development Area (HEDA) in Hangzhou, China. The HEDA site was transformed from a strawberry field in March 2016, to producing mAbs development batches twenty-five months later.
Pfizer was also awarded the Project Execution Category Award for the construction of the Pfizer Biotechnology Center. The US$195 million project was the culmination of an unprecedented construction schedule, efficient cost control measures, and an unmatched safety record in China.
AveXis received an Honorable Mention for its Next-Generation Manufacturing Facility for its Next-Generation Medicine. To manufacture its proprietary investigational gene replacement therapy, AveXis built a 49,000-square-foot state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in suburban Chicago, Illinois.
An Honorable Mention was also given to Takeda (formerly Shire) for its new 1.1 million-square-foot Georgia Manufacturing Facility near Covington, Georgia. Planned within a 160-acre site, this state-of-the-art facility integrates the technical requirements of both upstream and downstream manufacturing, while achieving optimal adjacencies between process areas and creating an environment that positively impacts the wellness of employees.
The 2019 FOYA Category Winners will be formally recognised at the ISPE Facility of the Year Awards Banquet and Dinner on 26 October, in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. The 2019 FOYA Overall Winner will be announced at the conference during the Membership and Awards Breakfast.