GSK process is year's top advance
3 Nov 2012
London – GlaxoSmithKline has taken top prize in the IChemE 2012 Awards for a process technology that offers a radical change in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
The tablet production can change from stepwise and time-consuming batch processing with intermediate material transfer steps and frequent testing.
The outcome was a fully integrated and closely controlled process that ensures consistency, reducing costs by 20%, the process equipment footprint by a factor of ten and the capital cost by a factor of three.
The development earned GSK alongside project partners GEA, Siemens, Sagentia and the Universities of Newcastle, Warwick and Surrey, IChemE’s ‘outstanding achievement in chemical engineering’ award.
Also recognised were Sellafield Ltd, which took the ‘nuclear innovation’ and ‘core chemical engineering’ awards, and Renmatix, winner of the ‘bioprocessing’ award for creating a faster and less expensive method of converting biomass into sugar.
Meanwhile, Air Products won the ‘education and training’ award for establishing a graduate council to work with new employees and the local community.
New Zealand-based Aurecon won the ‘food and drink’ award for its salt production facilities where capacity is increased by 63% whilst energy increases have risen by only 10%.
The University of Southampton won the ‘water management and supply award’, Malaysia-based Denny KS Ng won the ‘young chemical engineer of the year’ award and Martin Tangney from Celtic Renewables has named ‘innovator of the year’.
