17-Jan-2005 - A new safety training scheme, designed to deliver accredited 'safety passports' for service engineers and other outside contractors working in pharmaceutical, healthcare, toiletries and cosmetics factories has been introduced in the UK.
03-Jan-2005 - GE Infrastructure, a business unit of General Electric, is to acquire US water purification and wastewater treatment company Ionics for around $1.1 billion (€813m), plus the assumption of debt.
20-Dec-2004 - This month will see the launch of the second generation of Esco's Airstream Class II (AC2) biosafety cabinet, used for potentially hazardous applications such as cell culture, virus propagation and animal tissue handling.
13-Dec-2004 - A non-profit pharmaceutical company, the Institute for OneWorld Health, has been awarded a $42.6 million (€32.1m)grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to find a new way of producing a valuable drug for malaria, which kills more than a million children each year.
30-Nov-2004 - Germany's Christ Water Technology has developed a ready-to-connect water filtration plant that is specifically designed for use in the pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetics industries.
25-Oct-2004 - Novis, now with almost half a million readers, last week earned broad industry recognition with two further publishing awards, following on from its best publication prize earlier this year.
19-Oct-2004 - A Cambrex subsidiary has formed an alliance with Epoch Biosciences to apply a technology usually applied in genomic analysis to microbiological quality control for manufacturing processes.
06-Oct-2004 - The US Food and Drug Administration will start using a risk-based approach for prioritising site inspections for certain pharmaceutical products, the agency has announced in a final report on its current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) initiative.
30-Sep-2004 - One of the consequences of the new pharmaceutical legislation that came in last year is that companies involved in the manufacture of drugs have had to adapt their quality control processes. And these have not in all cases been made simpler.
09-Sep-2004 - Separation and filtration specialist Millipore has launched an automated system for the rapid detection, response and resolution of microbial contamination in manufacturing processes.
08-Sep-2004 - ELGA Process Water has announced a new addition to its ORION range of packaged water purification systems for pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturing, healthcare and biotechnology
10-Aug-2004 - Calling the next six months 'a critical period', the US Food and Drug Administration's Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford has unveiled a lengthy list of agency priorities, including continued work on Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards.
30-Jun-2004 - The market for generic drugs is going to expand from its present level of $35 billion (€29bn) to $80 billion in 2008, as cash-strapped healthcare payors turn increasingly to cheaper options.
11-May-2004 - The European Union and Japan have moved another step closer to recognising each other's Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) requirements in a move that should make it easier to register and import medicines across their borders.
29-Apr-2004 - A UK-based specialist in antimicrobial coating technology, BioCote, has entered into an agreement with Comark to develop more hygienic handheld thermometers and data loggers. The new products are intended for use in the pharmaceutical and food industries that make use of aseptic production processes.
13-Apr-2004 - The US Food and Drug Administration is planning to hold a meeting in June to re-examine its regulations on electronic records and signatures, used to generate the audit trail in the food and drug industries, to examine whether some elements are putting an unnecessary burden on industry.
13-Apr-2004 - Ilmvac of Germany has launched a machine for cleaning up spills of of toxic or biological fluids in the lab or process environment.
02-Apr-2004 - Several companies in the biopharmaceutical technology arena are championing the concept of disposable manufacturing as a simple, cost-effective way of making biologic drugs. But data on the actual cost benefits of adopting this approach have been limited, until now.
22-Mar-2004 - A new means of purifying air based on a simple electronic device could mount a significant challenge to established players such as ultraviolet light and HEPA filters, according to analysts.
03-Mar-2004 - A new range of polyurethane resin-based floor systems that combines an antimicrobial layer has been launched. Manufacturer John Lord claims that this new innovation can help manufacturers reduce the level of bacterial contamination in their production environments.
18-Feb-2004 - UK firm Hanovia has developed a way of sterilising the air in pharmaceutical cleanrooms - which have standards more stringent than even hospital operating theatres - using ultraviolet light.
17-Feb-2004 - Introgen Therapeutics has been awarded a US patent on a way to store adenoviruses so that they remain viable for over a year.
10-Feb-2004 - Amersham Biosciences has launched a new product designed to improve the yield of viruses manufactured for gene therapy and vaccine applications.
28-Jan-2004 - Millipore has teamed up with HyClone Laboratories in an alliance that brings the concept of disposable factory for biopharmaceuticals production a step closer.
15-Jan-2004 - Labcaire of the UK is upgrading its entire range of laboratory safety cabinets by coating them with an antimicrobial treatment designed to minimise the risk of cross-contamination.