2023 ISPE Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Category Winners Announced
11 May, 2023
ISPE announced the 2023 Facility of the Year Award Winners at the 2023 ISPE Europe Annual Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 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.
Categories winners include:
- Chugai Pharma Manufacturing Co., Ltd.- Innovation
- Genentech - Pharma 4.0™
- Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. - Social Impact
- Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd - Supply Chain
- Takeda SA– Social Impact
- WuXi Biologics Ireland Limited - Operations
The FOYA judges’ panel has also awarded Honorable Mention to:
Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.– Honorable Mention
We are thrilled to be recognizing this year’s FOYA category winners for their outstanding work in the pharmaceutical industry. These exceptional facilities demonstrate a strong commitment to improving patient care and enhancing global health, which is truly inspiring. ISPE congratulates all the winners and is proud to showcase their accomplishments as models for excellence in the design, construction, and operation of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities.
ISPE 2023 Facility of the Year (FOYA) Category Awards Winners
The Innovation Category was awarded to Chugai Pharma Manufacturing Co., Ltd. for its facility in Shizuoka Pref, Japan for the FJ2 Project. The FJ2 facility will enable Chugai to establish its own stable supply chain for APIs that are difficult to manufacture on a large scale, including high potency APIs, from early clinical development through to market launch. Chugai implemented several innovative design and equipment concepts in the facility to protect both the product and the worker. The Chugai FJ2 project focused on the process and employee safety throughout the entire project design and employed innovative ways to achieve these goals.
The Operations Category was awarded to WuXi Biologics Ireland Limited for its Contract Research, Development and Manufacturing Organization (CRDMO) facility in County Louth, Ireland. This site uses hybrid, single-use, scale-out production technology for multiproduct mAb and recombinant protein drug substance. A Design-Assist project model with IPS was used to design and build the new facility which with this collaborative approach significantly reduced cost, time, and re-work. Ultimately, this project is an inspiring landmark that proves that facilities can be developed on a highly accelerated schedule, using innovative solutions while complying with regulatory requirements, overcoming unknown barriers, cooperation with the community, and upholding project success and product safety.
SERUM Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. won the Supply Chain Category for its project “NISHWAS” located in Maharashtra, India. SERUM is a vaccine manufacturer and produces over 2.5 billion doses annually. In record time, Serum’s “NISHWAS” project manufactured a COVID-19 vaccine in large number of doses in spite of the challenging work environment. The construction modifications of manufacturing buildings, which were already 70% complete, were executed in two months, with uncompromised EHSS compliance. Through highly focused and exceptional project execution, real-time project risk management coupled with close multi-disciplinary coordination to prevent rework, Serum’s “NISHWAS” project exemplifies how to deliver in a record time a large pharmaceutical manufacturing capability and capacity during crisis to serve humanity unmet needs.
The Pharma 4.0TM Category was awarded to Genentech for their South San Francisco Clinical Supply Center located in San Francisco, California, USA. The Genentech Clinical Supply Center (CSC) uses advanced manufacturing technologies and employs an agile modular design to enable on-demand delivery of Genentech’s medicinal pipeline to clinical trials patients. This project is recognized with the FOYA 2023 Pharma 4.0™ category winner award as a role model on how the application of bold objectives, deep alignment and end-to-end planning, innovation in applying digital technologies, integration, and challenging paradigms all lead to a facility that delivers improved outcomes in terms of construction, safety, facility productivity and patient access to innovative medicines.
The first of two companies to be awarded in the Social Impact Category is Takeda SA for its project Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Manufacturing Building located in Lessines, Belgium. This facility produces plasma-derived therapy that is a sterile, ready-to-use, liquid preparation of purified human Alpha-1 Antitrypsin protein. This state-of-the art facility operates with the latest digital and sustainable technologies. Takeda achieved through this thought the application of novel approaches, standards and practices a sustainable facility design to ensure effective use of energy, minimize waste, reduce carbon footprint and reduce environmental impact.
The second of two companies to be awarded in the Social Impact Category is SERUM Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. for its project “NISHWAS” located in Maharashtra, India. The NISHWASH project and its ability to quickly deliver much-needed COVID vaccines to a populous country like India was invaluable in ensuring India’s resilient fight against COVID. This project and its outcome had profound impact on many other developing countries where vaccine manufactured by SERUM was administered. For these reasons, SERUM’s NISHWAS project is also recognized for the FOYA 2023 award in the category of “Social Impact”, as it exemplifies agility in delivering a positive impact on the well-being of millions of people in an accelerated timeframe.
Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was awarded an Honorable Mention for its Project Tomorrow in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin USA. Nexus is a woman-led, minority-owned, and family-owned healthcare company that specializes in developing priority generics, such as hard-to-formulate critical-need molecules that are routinely in short supply. The Nexus business model is focused on innovating processes to transform difficult-to-manufacture specialty and generic injectables into products that are easier to use and less labor-intensive to make. As a small generic company, the design and technology included in Project Tomorrow is impressive and in line with current industry standards.
The 2023 FOYA Category Winners will be formally recognized at the ISPE Facility of the Year Awards Banquet and Dinner on 15 October 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the 2023 FOYA Overall Winner will also be announced. Held in conjunction with the 2023 ISPE Annual Meeting & Expo, the banquet will feature acceptance speeches from the FOYA recipients and presentations from noted industry leaders.
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About the ISPE Facility of the Year Awards Program
Established in 2005, The Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) recognize state-of-the-art projects utilizing new, innovative technologies to improve the quality of products, reduce the cost of producing high-quality medicines, and demonstrate advances in project delivery. The FOYA program provides a platform for the pharmaceutical science and manufacturing industry to showcase its accomplishments in facility design, construction, and operation, while sharing the development of new applications of technology and cutting-edge approaches. Visit ISPE.org/FOYA for more information.