Page 98 - Plastics News August 2024
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IN THE NEWS
which have a 65 to 75% higher carbon footprint injectors and efficiently fill-finish them with their
per dose. injectable drug products. This can be done either
onsite through a licensing deal or at a facility run
A typical single-dose glass vial uses 100 times by one of ApiJect’s manufacturing partners.
more water than the ApiJect system during the
manufacturing, cleaning, and sterilization pro- Healthcare supply chains major con-
cesses. tributors to greenhouse gas emissions
“For pharma companies looking for sustainable Regarding its newest product and the life cycle
alternatives, we are part of the answer. It’s a study, study co-author Eckelman said the find-
more affordable pre-filled device and more sus- ings should be of great interest to anyone who
tainable,” said Ellenthal. cares about the environmental impact of medi-
cines. “We know already that healthcare and
“Our biggest advantage is in the manufactur- its supply chains are important contributors to
ing stage — glass vials are repeatedly washed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which col-
and sterilized and then shipped for filling, seal- lectively represent 8.5% of total US GHG emis-
ing, and so forth. Using our blow-fill-seal (BFS) sions and approximately 5% of global emissions,
system, vials can be processed and filled in sec- of which medicines make up a substantial part,”
onds,” added Ellenthal. said Eckelman in a prepared statement. “The re-
Unsafe injection practices kill more port shows that the carbon footprints of tradi-
than one million people globally each tional glass-based injectable medicine fill-finish
year options are approximately 65% to 125% higher
than ApiJect’s innovative platform, and they re-
The BFS system is the cornerstone of ApiJect’s quire more energy, materials, and water,” added
technology, which was initially conceived as Eckelman.
a medical advance without an environmental
agenda. The company was founded in 2015 by The prefilled ApiJect Injector is expected to be
available some time next year, according to El-
Marc Koska, an officer of the Order of the Brit-
ish Empire, with the goal of creating a single-use lenthal. “We’re a few months away from an FDA
filing, and, of course, the drug contained within
prefilled syringe that could work in any market.
He was driven by the observation that syringe the vial will need to go through its own regula-
tory process,” said Ellenthal. “But we are already
re-use and unsafe injection practices kill more
than a million people across the world every year. working with pharmaceutical companies today.”
Koska determined that blow-fill-seal technology SOURCE – PLASTICS TODAY
was key to producing a scalable, safe drug-de-
livery system. ApiJect now helps pharmaceutical
and biotech companies design scalable prefilled
100 PLASTICS NEWS August 2024
