Pharma Capsules

Agreements

IPR to Service Manesty Machines

Manesty (Fairfield, NJ, www.manesty.com) announced that IPR Inc. (Bartlett, IL, www.iprinc.net) will undertake all original equipment manufacturer (OEM) service work for Manesty's tablet presses and coaters in North America. IPR has experience servicing, repairing, and rebuilding Manesty tablet presses to clients' standards. Through IPR, Manesty will offer direct OEM service to all its North American customers.

Acquisitions

GE Acquires Wave Biotech

GE Healthcare (Chalfont St.Giles, UK, www.gehealthcare.com) acquired Wave Biotech (Somerset, NJ, www.wavebiotech.com), a supplier of disposable manufacturing technologies for the biopharmaceutical industry. The acquisition includes Wave Biotech's subsidiary, Wave Europe, and will allow GE Healthcare to expand its offering of products and services for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals such as antibodies and vaccines. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Bosch to Buy Pharmatec

The Bosch Group (Stuttgart, Germany, www.bosch.com) plans to acquire Pharmatec GmbH (Dresden, Germany, www.pharmatec.de), from Fresenius ProServe GmbH. The transaction will include Pharmatec's subsidiary Schoeller-Bleckmann Medizintechnik Ges.m.b.H, headquartered in Ternitz, Austria.

Bosch develops and manufactures process and packaging machinery for the pharmaceutical industries. Pharmatec focuses on hygienic and aseptic process technologies for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.The purchase price was not disclosed, and the transaction is subject to approval by antitrust authorities.

People

AdvantaPure Names Director of Software Solutions

AdvantaPure (Southampton, PA, www.advantapure.com) promoted Jeffrey D. Johnson to the new position of director of software solutions. Johnson's focus will be on AdvantaPure's line of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking products, including "GammaTag," the company's gamma-sterilizable RFID tag. His new duties include developing, installing, and supporting the company's RFID products.

Johnson previously was Advantapure's network administrator. He joined NewAge Industries, AdvantaPure's parent company, in 1990 as a sales representative.

IPS Announces Appointments

Integrated Project Services (IPS, Lafayette Hill, PA, www.ipsdb.com), an engineering firm serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, appointed Eugene K.Martini senior director, projectdelivery operations. In this role, Martini will oversee the daily operations of that division.He has been involved with manufacturing and development projects regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration for the past 15 years. Martini recently worked at CDI Corporation as director of project management.

IPS also appointed David J. Brown director, project services. Brown will lead the project-services and project-controls teams to develop solutions to support client projects and business objectives. He will also implement various project-controls functions such as estimating, planning, cost control, change management, progress measurement, risk management, and cashflow projections for pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical clients.

Atlas Hires Senior Technical Consultant

Atlas Material Testing Technology (Chicago, IL, www.atlas-mts.com) named David Dumbleton its senior technical consultant for the newly created Atlas Consulting Group. Dumbleton will lend his expertise in environmental durability and performance to Atlas's customers and expand the North American consultingservices group.

Dumbleton's experience includes technical and business management in the polymer-materials industry. He previously worked as a director of research and development at Alcoa Flexible Packaging.

Expansions

BASF Adds THF Capacity at Ludwigshafen Site

BASF (Florham Park, NJ www.basf.com) is expanding its annual capacity for the intermediate tetrahydrofuran (THF) by 30, 000 tons at its Ludwigshafen site. The expansion will raise the company's annual THF capacity to 210, 000 metric tons by the end of 2007.

THF is used in complex water-sensitive reactions frequently needed to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients. BASF supplies high-purity THF with a low residual water content of 0.01%.

Future Pak Moves to Larger Facility

Future Pak Ltd. (Wixom, MI, www.futurepak.com), a contract packager, moved its solid-dose packaging operations to a new location. Three blister suites, 12 form–fill–seal lines, and soliddose bottling operations moved to a 32, 000-ft² facility in Wixom, Michigan.

The site will provide space for the expansion of the company's blister-packaging capacity. During the past three years, Future Pak's annual packaging volume grew to 1800 batches, or about 7 billion tablets.