Asahi Kasei to expand hollow fibre membranes capacity
April 01, 2015 - Japan
Asahi Kasei Medical said it will construct a new plant for the spinning of hollow fibre membranes for Planova BioEX filters at its Oita Plant in Japan.
“This addition will increase capacity for Planova BioEX filters to 10,000 square metres per annum,” Asahi Kasei Medical said in a press release.
Asahi Kasei will hold the ground breaking of the new plant in August 2015 and project is scheduled for completion in August 2016.
According to Asahi Kasei, Planova virus removal filters are used to enhance safety in the production process for biotherapeutic products such as biopharmaceuticals and plasma derivatives.
“The outstanding performance of Planova filters, combining high rates of virus clearance with high rates of protein recovery, has been widely recognised throughout the world,” it added.
Launched in 2009, Planova BioEX filters incorporate durable hydrophilic PVDF or polyvinylidene fluoride hollow-fibre membranes that can cope with the harsh processing conditions of biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
“With its superior viral clearance performance in high protein concentration solutions, Planova BioEX filters are increasingly adopted by major pharmaceutical manufacturers, especially in Europe and US,” it informed.
The new spinning plant will enable Asahi Kasei Medical to meet growing demand for Planova BioEX filters as higher protein concentrations increase in manufacturing process of biotherapeutic products.
Asahi Kasei also added that it will continue to contribute to greater safety of biotherapeutic products by developing high-quality and high-performance products in accordance with market needs.
According to Asahi Kasei, Planova BioEX filters are optimised for filtration under high protein concentrations, suited to high pressure filtration and are steam in place compatible.
Other benefits include; superior validated virus filtration performance, even with small parvoviruses, various filter surface area sizes and making for easy scale up or scale down. (AR)