Asahi Kasei : Completion of new spinning plant for Planova™ BioEX filters

September 13, 2016
Asahi Kasei Medical Co., Ltd.

Asahi Kasei Medical has completed the construction of a new plant for the spinning of hollow-fiber membranes for Planova™ BioEX filters at the site of its Planova Oita Plant in Oita, Japan.

Planova™ BioEX virus removal filters, which incorporate hydrophilic PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) hollow-fiber membranes, are used in the production process for biotherapeutic products such as biopharmaceuticals and plasma derivatives. The hollow-fiber membranes produced at the new spinning plant will be used in the assembly of Planova™ BioEX filters at plants in Oita and Nobeoka. With the new plant, the company's total supply capacity for Planova™ BioEX filters will increase to 10,000 m/year.

Asahi Kasei Medical will continue to contribute to greater safety of biotherapeutic products by developing high-quality and high-performance products in accordance with market needs, while proactively investing in manufacturing facilities.

Outline of the new spinning plant:

Key features of Planova™ BioEX filters:

• Optimized for filtration under high protein concentrations
• Suited to high pressure filtration
• SIP (steam in place) compatible
• Superior validated virus filtration performance, even with small parvoviruses
• Various filter surface area sizes, making for easy scale up or scale down

Biopharmaceuticals are a class of pharmaceuticals that contain peptides and proteins as active ingredients. They are produced using genetic engineering and biotechnology such as cell culture. Examples include interferon, growth hormone, erythropoietin, and monoclonal antibody.

Plasma derivatives are protein preparations obtained by purifying blood plasma. Examples include globulin used to treat infectious disease, and blood coagulation factor XIII used to treat hemophilia.