Gilead Alberta receives ‘Best Practices Award’ for improving pharmaceutical batch process with Foxboro pH sensors

Gilead Alberta receives ‘Best Practices Award’ for improving pharmaceutical batch process with Foxboro pH sensors

Invensys customer, Gilead Alberta, received a 2007 Plant Services Best Practices Award for improving pharmaceutical batch processing efficiency while substantially reducing costs using advanced-technology Foxboro pH sensors. Gilead Alberta is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, and commercializes innovative therapeutics to advance the care of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases worldwide.

The Plant Services Best Practice Award recognizes management technique, work process, product, and service implementations that improve industrial plant performance, maintenance, reliability and asset management. Winners are selected by the more than 105,000 subscribers of Plant Services magazine, who judge entries based on short- and long-term return on investment, innovation, and breadth of application.

Gilead Alberta won the Best Practices award in the “Equipment” category for working with Invensys’ Foxboro Measurements & Instruments Division (www.foxboro.com/instrumentation) to develop an advanced pH sensor to assure consistent product quality and maximize batch yields in the company’s harsh process environment. The Foxboro 871PH Series sensor enabled Gilead to complete a pH adjustment in just three hours, rather than the 18 hours to 24 hours previously required.

“With the Foxboro 871PH sensor, yields have increased and cycle times have been shortened. When you add the increase in quality, the improved pH readings by one sensor can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per year,” says Robert Pastushak, senior technical/operational supervisor, Gilead Alberta.

According to Pastushak, the 871 PH sensor is also very durable. “The sensor we deployed more than two years ago looks like it did the day we bought it. Previously, as many as three probes, at approximately $600 per probe, would fail while processing just one batch.” says Pastushak.

Ash Grove Cement, another Invensys customer, was also selected as a runner up in the Plant Services Best Practices Award “Software/Systems” category for expanding the scope of its computerized maintenance management system to reduced inventory and improve maintenance efficiency through the use of Invensys’ comprehensive Avantis EAM (enteriprise asset management) solution.