Retrofit Pharmaceutical Equipment For High Containment And Reduced Risk Of Cross Contamination

By Scott Patterson, Vice President Technical Support and Paulo Bento, Field Application Specialist

With the growth of highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs) and multiple-use facilities that must protect against product cross contamination, the need for engineering controls to achieve high containment has become more critical. Technology has evolved over the past 20 years to meet reduced exposure levels while also making high-containment systems financially reasonable. Not so along there was a mindset in pharmaceutical processing that containment systems came at a significant capital cost, and handling HPAPIs resulted in an even higher CapEx for the proper controls. This does not need to be the case with the implementation of single-use or flexible containment technology. In this paper we explore how single-use containment technology impacts capital spending and operating expenses in these workflows.