Contracts & Projects: Pharma & Bio

GF SpA, a Parma, Italy-based maker of filling equipment and quality control systems for the pharma, medical and food industries, is using the Micro Motion Model FMT filling mass transmitter from Emerson Process Management to reduce filling times, improve accuracy and repeatability, and achieve tighter filling tolerances for its filling machines. GF’s filling machinery is used for the precision measurement of injectables, infusions, ophthalmic preparations, syrups and detergent solutions.

Finesse Solutions, a maker of solutions for managing complex bioprocess applications, is standardising its third-party data comms on MatrikonOPC technology. Using OPC, Finesse can integrate both large and small numbers of Sartorius Biostat DCU controllers into customers’ DeltaV control network, said Matrikon. This, it added, also allows users to develop more sophisticated control strategies using legacy equipment in a master-slave configuration with TruBio-SCADA.

The UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has awarded Virtalis a £2.2m contract to provide multiple virtual reality (VR) facilities for its Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories. The advanced visualisation systems will include a quad channel, blended ActiveWall, two dual channel ActiveWalls, and an eight-channel ActiveWall featuring a 10.25m curved screen with both blending and warping. All the systems will feature tracking to give users a greater sense of immersion, as well as powerful 3D interaction capabilities. The contract is part of a £37.5m investment in STFC’s e-infrastructure facilities that are designed to establish Daresbury Laboratory as an international centre of excellence for computational science and engineering.

CFB Boilers recently completed a major steam boiler plant upgrade for the UK’s National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in South Mimms. NIBSC specialises in the field of biological standardisation, developing and producing over 90% of the international standards used to assure the quality of biological medicines. It is also the UK’s Official Medicines Laboratory and a centre of the UK Health Protection Agency. “Efficiency and low carbon emissions are key targets for the Government, and given the Institute’s status, it is important that we lead from the front in terms of energy and environmental responsibility,” explains Jude Hughes, environment and energy manager at NIBSC.

GSK is to invest more than £500m in the UK across its manufacturing sites to increase production of key active ingredients for its pharmaceutical products and vaccines. The decision is expected to create up to 1,000 new jobs over the lifetime of the projects. (More on Process Engineering)

Cynar plc has awarded Rockwell Automation an $11m contract to design and build a plastics-to-fuel conversion plant in Bristol, UK for SITA UK ltd - a Cynar customer and partner in the development. Cynar has developed a technology that converts end-of-life plastics into fuel. The contract includes the design and build of process skids, automation architecture, software, power control and engineering/startup services in one fully integrated solution, using the Rockwell’s PlantPAx process automation system. A Rockwell team has worked with Cynar over the past two years developing the engineering, modularisation and process improvements of its conversion plant.

Priorclave is to supply five medium-capacity laboratory autoclaves to Imperial College London’s new scientific research building, the Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine, which will be officially opened later this year. The EH450 units feature a 450 litre capacity chamber can cope with high throughputs and accommodate large and bulky items.

National Grid, Advanced Plasma Power (APP) and Progressive Energy have launched a project to demonstrate the feasability of using of waste to produce bio-substitute natural gas (Bio-SNG). The project will be based at APP’s ‘Gasplasma’ facility in Swindon, UK. The partners will jointly design, install and test a demo plant, which will take the waste-derived synthesis gas from APP ‘Gasplasma’ process, and convert it to meet the specification for injecting it into the gas network.

Foster Wheeler has been awarded a conceptual and basic design contract by SAJA Pharmaceuticals for the expansion of a manufacturing facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The contract is to be completed during May 2012. SAJA is a JV between TAMER Industries and two Japanese pharma companies, Daiichi-Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Astellas Pharma Inc.

Yorkshire Water has awarded a £28m contract for the design and build of a pioneering new energy scheme to a JV between Morgan Sindall and Grontmij. The contract, worth £25m to Morgan Sindall, is part of YW’s AMP5 large projects framework, to which the JV was appointed in September 2010. The project will be constructed this year and commissioned in early 2013. (More on Process Engineering)

Grimley Smith Associates, part of Fabricom GDF SUEZ (UK), is to design a bio-polymer demonstration facility that Plaxica plans to build at Wilton International on Teesside. Plaxica is a technology and licensing company focused on the production of biopolymers and chemicals from renewable resources, such as sugarcane, cereals and cellulose. The proposed demo plant will use energy efficient processes to produce second generation polylactic acid (PLA) based materials.

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