ISPE’s 2019 Facility of the Year Award for Operational Excellence won by partners Exyte and Kantonsapotheke Zurich

Außenansicht der Kantonsapotheke Zürich. / Exterior view on the facility Kantonsapotheke Zurich.

Robotergestützte Ampullenablage in einem sterilen Arbeitsbereich. / Vial filling robot in sterile production area.

The award was announced on 2 April 2019 at the ISPE Europe Annual Conference in Dublin, Ireland. Exyte sincerely congratulates its client on this success. The facility Kantonsapotheke Zurich (KAZ) is a true shift forward, as a confluence of ideas, leadership, technology, finance and marketplace. It leads the very concept of hospital pharmacies into the future and establishes benchmarks of operational excellence never seen before in patient focused facilities.

ISPE’s annual FOYA Awards identify the best projects around the world in Life Science, recognizing  innovation and creativity in technology, regulatory compliance, operations and business practices. Exyte is pleased to have been the design-build partner bringing this project from concept to startup.

“Working in concert with the leadership team of Kantonapotheke Zurich, Exyte provided engineering, procurement, construction management and validation that led to the development of this technologically-advanced facility”, outlines François Abiven, President Life Sciences & Chemicals at Exyte.

Life Sciences & Chemicals is the second largest strategic business segment of Exyte measured by sales revenue. Exyte is a provider and integrator of technology advanced solutions, including design, construction and commissioning to deliver complex processing plants. For this segment Exyte provides a full range of services: consulting & planning, engineering, project management, construction, commissioning and qualification for customers in the pharmaceuticals & biotechnology, food & nutrition, consumer care and specialty chemicals industries.

Operational excellence benchmark sets a new standard

The KAZ has replaced and integrated two outdated hospital pharmacies that had been unable to continue serving the progressive needs of the community. Today, the facility provides the Canton of Zurich hospital system a range of oral, dermal and parenteral formulations, often with patient-specific recipes. It is highly flexible, adaptable and expandable to easily and quickly accommodate new functions, such as the rapidly emerging field of personalized medicine. All products are manufactured under industrial cGMP conditions, a major step change that is new to hospital pharmacies and their workers.

According to Armin Uwira, Head of Engineering at Exyte in Switzerland: “KAZ is the first of a kind, a technically, financially and operationally superior facility serving hospital patients. It has achieved an astonishing performance record of 60 to 90 minutes turnaround from diagnostic test and prescription to patient injection for cytotoxic compounds used oncology. The facility raises the bar of quality and drives the use of cGMP protocols and behavior into hospital pharmacies.”

About ISPE

The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) is the world’s largest not-for-profit association serving its members through leading scientific, technical, and regulatory advancement across the entire pharmaceutical lifecycle. The 18,500 members of ISPE are building solutions in the development and manufacture of safe, effective pharmaceutical and biologic medicines, and medical delivery devices in more than 90 countries around the world. Founded in 1980, ISPE has its worldwide headquarters and training center in North Bethesda, Maryland USA, and its operations center in Tampa, Florida USA.

About Exyte

Exyte is a global leader in design, engineering and construction delivering high-tech facilities, plants and factories. With a history of more than 100 years, the company has developed a special expertise in controlled and regulated environments. It serves the most technically demanding clients in growth markets such as semiconductors, life sciences, and data center across the full spectrum of services from consulting and design to managing turnkey solutions. Operating in more than 20 countries, Exyte is uniquely positioned to support clients locally and globally. In 2017, Exyte generated sales of 2.4 billion euros, up from 2.1 billion euros in 2016 on a like-for-like basis, with over 4,800 highly experienced and motivated employees (by the end of the year 2017). Exyte emerged from a regrouping of the M+W Group in 2018. Exyte is a member of the Stumpf Group.