News

Posted On: 04/26/2007

Gilead Alberta Receives Best Practices Award

PharmaManufacturing.com

Invensys customer, Gilead Alberta, received a 2007 Plant Services Best Practices Award on Apr. 25 at the 2007 Interphex Conference in New York for improving pharmaceutical batch processing efficiency while substantially reducing costs using advanced-technology Foxboro pH sensors. Gilead Alberta is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and commercializes innovative therapeutics to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases worldwide.

The Plant Services Best Practice Award recognizes management technique, work process, product, and service implementations that improve industrial plant performance, maintenance, reliability and asset management. Winners are selected by the more than 105,000 subscribers of Plant Services magazine, who judge entries based on short- and long-term return on investment, innovation, and breadth of application.

Gilead Alberta won the Best Practices award in the "Equipment" category for working with Invensys' Foxboro Measurements Instruments Division to develop an advanced pH sensor to assure consistent product quality and maximize batch yields in the company's harsh process environment. The Foxboro 871PH Series sensor enabled Gilead to complete a pH adjustment in just three hours, rather than the 18 hours to 24 hours previously required.

"With the Foxboro 871PH sensor, yields have increased and cycle times have been shortened. When you add the increase in quality, the improved pH readings by one sensor can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year," says Robert Pastushak, senior technical/operational supervisor, Gilead Alberta.

According to Pastushak, the 871 PH sensor is also very durable. "The sensor we deployed more than two years ago looks like it did the day we bought it. Previously, as many as three probes, at approximately $600 per probe, would fail while processing just one batch." says Pastushak.