GEA Pharma Secures Penn Pharma Order

GEA Pharma Systems has secured an order for processing equipment with Penn Pharma. The new equipment significantly increases Penn Pharma’s production capacity for high containment development and manufacture of highly potent drugs.
 
The GEA equipment includes highly contained materials handling from Buck Systems based on Buck MC valves and Hicoflex; a PharmaConnect line for product formulation and for production high shear granulation and blending; FlexStream fluid bed technology; and the MODUL P tablet press with the unique Exchangeable Compression Module that keeps all the product contact parts within a sealed unit. 
 
Mark Dean Netscher, chief operating officer at Penn Pharma, said, “Large pharmaceutical companies often have their own R&D facilities but choose to outsource larger volume production. There are few companies around the world that are capable of providing the quality and range of capacities required, while ensuring the high levels of containment without resorting to cumbersome isolation suits. Today, those old ways are just not acceptable.”
 
Jerome Detreille, senior director of new business development, said, “We felt it was essential to provide high quality production facilities under one roof to allow us to handle a much broader range of potent APIs with less reliance on protective equipment. We believe GEA gave us the best balance of productivity and compliance to be able to produce a good quality product in a safe, contained and compliant manner. Also many large pharmaceutical companies use GEA equipment themselves therefore there can be no question in our customers’ minds that our technology is of the highest level.”