Facility of the year - hip hip drugsah!

2007 Facility of the Year Award Category Winners Announced

Five pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities located in China, Germany, Japan, and the United States have been selected as Category Winners in the third annual Facility of the Year Awards competition sponsored by ISPE, INTERPHEX, and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine. New enhancements to this year’s awards program include naming winners in five specific categories.

The companies and respective award categories include:
* Cook Pharmica, LLC, located in Bloomington, Indiana, USA, selected as winner of the Facility of the Year Award for Facility Integration
* Genentech located in Oceanside, California, USA, selected as winner of the Facility of the Year Award for Project Execution
* Shanghai Roche Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., located in Shanghai, China, selected as winner of the Facility of the Year Award for Project Execution Regional Excellence
* Taiyo Yakuhin Co., Ltd located in Takayama City, Japan, selected as winner of the Facility of the Year Award for Equipment Innovation
* Vetter Pharma-Fertigung GmbH & Co. KG located in Ravensburg, Germany, selected as winner of the Facility of the Year Award for Process Innovation

The Facility of the Year Awards competition is the premier global awards program focused on recognizing the innovation and creativity utilized by manufacturing facilities serving the regulated health care industry. By recognizing those manufacturers who are using new technologies both to improve the quality of their products while reducing the cost of producing medicines, the awards program promotes technological innovation across the industry. In consideration that the product development and research aspects of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry generally get most of the attention, the Facility of the Year Awards program recognizes those who design, build, and operate world-class manufacturing facilities.

Being named a Category Winner generates unsurpassed opportunities for the applicant manufacturer and those organizations that designed, constructed, validated, and equipped the facility to showcase their ingenuity in facility design through various publicity initiatives. Moreover, the competition offers an unprecedented opportunity for submitting companies, category winners, and the Facility of the Year Award winner to motivate colleagues within the industry toward these advances through the sharing of industry-wide best practices within the global community.

“There is something truly remarkable and innovative about every single submission,” said Scott Ludlum, ISPE's Director of Business Initiatives. “
The five Category Winners hail from four different countries. This diversity demonstrates that the Awards program is a true reflection of the global nature of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry,” said Ludlum.

Each of the submissions was reviewed by an independent, blue-ribbon judging panel of global representatives from the pharmaceutical design, construction, and manufacturing sectors.
“The addition of Category Winners to the 2007 Awards program significantly impacted the competition and effectively enabled the judges to properly acknowledge those facilities that stood out and deserve special recognition,” stated Andy Skibo, 2007 Judging Panel Chair, and Vice President Corporate Engineering and Capital Projects for Amgen.

Recognition at INTERPHEX

2007 Category Winners will be recognized and awarded during INTERPHEX2007, where thousands convene for the largest and most distinguished industry event taking place worldwide, which takes place from 24-26 April 2007.

The announcement of the coveted Facility of the Year Awards winner will take place at ISPE’s 2007 Annual Meeting in November at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. ISPE’s Annual Meeting is the leading industry event attended by pharmaceutical manufacturing professionals where Category Winners will be recognized in front of their peers during ISPE’s keynote session. There will also be a separate Facility of the Year Awards display and a conference session featuring the Category Winners and Facility of the Year Award Winner.

Meet the 2007 Facility of the Year Judging Panel

Andy Skibo Judging Panel Chair VP Corp. Engineering and Capital Production Amgen
Nigel Barnes Vice President, Global Project Management GlaxoSmithKline.
Chaz Calitri Senior Director/Team Leader Pfizer Global Engineering
Christian Ilsoe Vice President Quality & Validation Assurance NNE A/S
Brian H. Lange, P.E. Director – Sterile & Packaging Operations Engineering Merck & Co., Inc.
Thomas G. Lyon Vice President Global Engineering Bristol Myers Squibb Co.
Shinichi Osada Chief Marketing Manager Hitachi Plant Technologies, Ltd.
Ulrich Rudow VP Worldwide Engineering and Real Estate Johnson & Johnson
Ronald Trudeau Vice President – Facilities Engineering Services Baxter Healthcare Corp.

Please, let me congratulate to winnwers, and express my profoundly appreciation.