BELGIAN TRADE COMMISSION - NEW YORK
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WALLONIA INVESTMENT AND TRADE OFFICE - ATLANTA - CHICAGO - HOUSTON - NEW YORK - SAN FRANCISCO - WASHINGTON, DC |
2009 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Winners Announced
NEW YORK /March 5, 2009 -- Six pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities constructed by companies located in Belgium, India, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland have been selected as Category Winners in the fifth annual Facility of the Year Awards program sponsored by ISPE, INTERPHEX, and Pharmaceutical Processing magazine.
Facility of the Year Award Winner for Equipment Innovation:
Aseptic Technologies
To address the incidents that are still recorded each year due to the injection of contaminated products, and the complexities of vial component preparation, high-speed stoppering, and aluminum cap crimping, Aseptic Technologies, a subsidiary of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, developed the new Crystal® Closed Vial technology for aseptic filling of injectable products. As this technology was completely new, Aseptic Technologies decided to install the first Crystal Closed Vial Filling Line (CVFL) in its own Gembloux, Belgium facility and operate it as a contract manufacturing organization to help clients obtain stability data and fill clinical batches before making large financial investments.
The site is located in the center of Europe, 60 km away from Brussels, the capital of Belgium and European Community. It is composed of two buildings: AT01 which is dedicated to offices meeting rooms and workshops and AT02 that includes workshop, offices and a filling suite of 400-square-meters with all of the necessary equipment to perform aseptic filling in the Crystal Closed Vial technology.
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Wallonia Biotech Companies Land at Philadelphia Business Incubator - The Science Center
Over the past few years, the life sciences have undergone a revolution that has generated unprecedented technological and industrial developments in numerous applications, most notably that of health care, agriculture, and the environment.
The United States maintains the world’s first biotech cluster. It is home to 1,400 biotech companies, 300 of which are publicly traded. Almost half of these companies are located on the North East BioMed Corridor, which runs from Washington DC to Boston, passing through Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. This Atlantic corridor , almost 600km long, includes prestigious universities and research centers that specialize in the life sciences such as Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute of Health (NIH).
Philadelphia occupies a central place in this Biotech cluster. This is why the Walloon Export and Investment Agency (AWEX), thanks to a partnership with the Science Center (www.sciencecenter.org) , has chosen the city of Philadelphia to promote Walloon companies in a business incubator setting. Specializing in the life sciences, this incubator offers many advantageous conditions.
The objective of this project is to contribute to the international development of small to medium Walloon companies in a sector where globalization sets the rules.
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New York is the pilot office for the whole US market in the following sectors: food products (including beverages), confectionary, tableware, games, toys, medical equipment and devices, new materials, metal products, ports, biotechnology, advanced materials.
In addition this office represents the Northeastern states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont for all local contacts and actions.
