Feb 18 2010
Epeius Biotechnologies (www.epeiusbiotech.com) announces the completion of the design engineering and construction phase of a state-of-the-art Vector Production Unit (VPU) for the commercial manufacturing of its advanced targeted genetic medicines. In accordance with an FDA Critical Path initiative, which encourages innovation and the implementation of new technological advances in GMP, CMC, aseptic processing, and quality control, the Epeius VPU is poised to launch the large-scale production of targeted genetic medicine into the 21st century. By combining the most advanced modular clean-room engineering specifications with space-age materials, aseptic processes, and robotic operations, the stunning new facility exemplifies a new level of cleanliness, efficiency, productivity, and cost-effectiveness, as well as product quality control, all by design.
Housed in a spacious NASA-style hangar and seated onto an expansive seamless epoxy floor, the elegant stainless steel and glass facility is pleasing to the eye, both inside and out, as large windows and walls of plate glass rise to form corridors with twelve-foot ceilings. Equipped with clean-room air handling systems derived from the high-tech industry, the impeccable cleanliness of the enveloped interior is further maintained by batteries of UV-lights embedded within the integral ductwork. The outstanding level of high-tech innovation embodied in the Epeius VPU is hardly surprising, considering that systems engineers from Terra Universal critical environment solutions worked closely with Epeius scientists on the plant's design features.
By streamlining material flow, personnel tasks, and bioprocessing operations, while reducing overall footprint and manual labor, the modular, robotic VPU provides an optimization of single-use technologies and the decoupling of solution preparation from the process, thereby providing increased operating efficiencies, large economies-of-scale, and enhanced quality assurance.
This modular, robotic VPU serves as a flagship facility that meets and exceeds the challenges of operating economy, process optimization, and operational excellence, as it extends these concepts to the bio-manufacturing industry of the 21st century. From its inception as an academic startup enterprise -- incubated at The University of Southern California School of Medicine -- to its emergence as a global leader in the field of targeted genetic medicine, Epeius Biotechnologies has advanced the science of molecular genetics from the bench to the bedside in a manner that is unprecedented in modern times. By working closely with acknowledged leaders in the fields of molecular biotechnology, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and clean-room fabrication, Epeius Biotechnologies is striving to make the promise and potential of targeted genetic medicine more abundant and affordable for cancer patients worldwide.
SOURCE Epeius Biotechnologies
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