Powder and liquid transfer specialist, ChargePoint Technology Group, and provider of infection prevention and other procedural products and services, Steris, have partnered to provide a sterile solution to specialty chemicals company, Evonik.
 
Evonik specializes in complex parenteral medications at its plant in Alabama, USA, where it manufactures using fill-finish lines handling a broad mix of products.
 
The company is using ChargePoint’s AseptiSafe Bio Valve coupled to the Steris Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide (VHP) bio-decontamination system on its VarioSys filling line. The qualified VarioSys line is optimized for continuous filling, allowing the product to move through the process in the shortest amount of time. The solution also overcomes the challenge of transferring product from a container to the filling equipment while maintaining sterility.
 
The ChargePoint AseptiSafe Split Butterfly Valve (SBV) secures the connection between the product and the container, protecting the sterility and therefore the performance of the API.
 
Chris Eccles, CEO at ChargePoint Technology said, “With the development of specialized medicines increasing, many manufacturers, like Evonik, have struggled to find specialized equipment that meet their requirements. It was absolutely crucial that Evonik could aseptically connect and disconnect the product vessel quickly to maintain product sterility. After reviewing multiple vendors, our system was found to provide the highest degree of product protection.”
 
Steris’s portable VHP 1000ED bio-decontamination unit decontaminates its surroundings and easily adapts to its manufacturing environment. Together with the ChargePoint technology, the replacement of product containers could occur aseptically and within one hour, as well as enabling continuous filling without interruption, critical to minimizing downtime.
 
Caroline Hand, production engineer at Evonik, commented, “Evonik has been delighted by the results produced by the multi-faceted approach from ChargePoint and Steris. This partnership provided a solution that delivered the highest integrity when performing high volume aseptic product transfer with multiple product containers and significantly reduced the turnaround time of this project. We are thrilled with the outcomes.”
 
Abby Lovell, associate product manager at Steris added, “Our continued partnership with ChargePoint means that its unique aseptic SBV technology in conjunction with Steris’s VHP bio-decontamination system are collectively meeting the technical needs of the industry. This has allowed us to provide the ultimate sterile transfer solution to Evonik and we look forward to many more years of partnership.”