2019 ISPE Facility of the Year Award Winners Announced

02 April, 2019

ISPE today announced the 2019 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) Category Winners at its 2019 ISPE Europe Annual Conference in Dublin, Ireland. Awardees include:

The FOYA’s judges’ panel has also awarded Honorable Mentions to:

Facility of the Year Awards is the premier global awards program recognizing innovation and creativity in manufacturing facilities serving the regulated healthcare industry. The award-winning projects selected by the Facility of the Year Awards program set the standard for pharmaceutical facilities of the future by demonstrating excellence in facility design, construction, and operations.

“The 2019 Facility of the Year Awards Category Winners are at the forefront of not only setting the standard for pharmaceutical facilities of the future, but also creating new opportunities to enhance patient health and safety worldwide.” said John Bournas, ISPE CEO and President. “We are pleased to spotlight the dedication of these companies who epitomize the future of global innovation and facility design.”


2019 Facility of the Year Category Award Winners

Celgene International II

Celgene International II is the winner of the Sustainability Category Award for its Green Fairy Project (La Fée Verte) for their manufacturing facility in Couvet, Switzerland. One of the main objectives for the new facility was to implement an environmentally responsible and sustainable site in-line with their corporate principles.


Eli Lilly and Company

Eli Lilly and Company won the Process Innovation Category Award for its IE2 Small Volume Continuous Facility in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland. This innovative facility and the process design concepts incorporated advance the industry in three specific areas; process analytical technologies and advanced automation, development of new continuous technologies, and significant improvement in process safety and environmental impacts.


Janssen Cilag SpA

The Equipment Innovation Category was awarded to Janssen Cilag SpA for their project Dosepak Equipment which entailed the design, installation, and qualification of state-of-art equipment at their manufacturing facility in Latina, Italy. The facility integrated advanced robotics and automation into a standard packaging process steps and enabled lean, flexible, and sustainable manufacturing.


Moderna, Inc.

Moderna, Inc. is the winner of the Facility of the Future Category Award for its New cGMP Clinical Manufacturing Facility in Norwood, Massachusetts USA which was designed to be highly-flexible, adaptable and capable of manufacturing both for clinic and research. The digital production environment was designed to enable high throughput with a robust and diverse set of products.


Kantonsapotheke Zürich

Kantonsapotheke Zürich won the Operational Excellence Award Category for its New Compounding Pharmacy for Canton Zürich Hospitals—a leap forward for hospital pharmacy compounding operations. The project demonstrates a transformational step in hospital compounding operations and establishes a new norm for future facilities in this important step of patient therapy.


Pfizer Inc.

The Facility Integration Category was awarded to Pfizer Inc. for the Pfizer Biotechnology Center built in the Hangzhou Economic Development Area (HEDA) in Hangzhou, China. The HEDA site was transformed from a strawberry field in March 2016, to producing mAbs development batches twenty-five months later.


Pfizer Inc

Pfizer Inc. was also awarded the Project Execution Category Award for the construction of the Pfizer Biotechnology Center. The $195 million project was the culmination of an unprecedented construction schedule, efficient cost control measures, and an unmatched safety record in China.


AveXis, Inc.

AveXis, Inc. received an Honorable Mention for its Next-Generation Manufacturing Facility for its Next-Generation Medicine. To manufacture its proprietary investigational gene replacement therapy, AveXis built a 49,000-square-foot state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in suburban Chicago, Illinois.


Takeda

An Honorable Mention was also given to Takeda (formerly Shire) for its new 1.1 million-square-foot Georgia Manufacturing Facility near Covington, Georgia. Planned within a 160-acre site, this state-of-the-art facility integrates the technical requirements of both upstream and downstream manufacturing, while achieving optimal adjacencies between process areas and creating an environment that positively impacts the wellness of employees.


The 2019 Facility of the Year Awards Category Winners will be formally recognized at the ISPE Facility of the Year Awards Banquet and Dinner on 26 October, in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. Held in conjunction with the 2019 ISPE Annual Meeting & Expo, the banquet will feature acceptance speeches from the FOYA recipients and presentations from noted industry leaders. The 2019 Facility of the Year Awards Overall Winner will be announced at the conference during the Membership and Awards Breakfast.

About the ISPE Facility of the Year Awards Program

Established in 2004, 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. Learn more about the Facility of the Year Awards program.