Eliminate the risk of Contamination with ALUS® in Freeze Drying

GEA Lyophil will exhibit its state of the art ALUS® (Automatic Loading and Unloading System) on the GEA Pharma Systems stand at ACHEMA 2009.

ALUS® is not new but is something of an unsung hero in the world of pharmaceutical processing. Since GEA Lyophil was the first company to manufacture the system more than 20 years ago, ALUS® has made a huge contribution to a safer and more productive operation of freeze dryers.

Operator and product protection
Over the years GEA Lyophil has introduced significant innovations both to the permanently-installed and free-moveable transfer cart systems. For example, in 1997 the company was the first to bring a complete system consisting of freeze dryer, ALUS® and isolators into production. GEA Lyophil recognized the industry’s needs for contamination prevention and operator protection allowing manufacturers to keep contamination out of the product and protect the operator from potentially harmful substances by removing the operator from the processing area.

Smooth load / unload with minimal operator monitoring
GEA Lyophil continues the development today and the system exhibited at ACHEMA 2009 will demonstrate the latest in ALUS® technology: a stationary push/pull ALUS® system, which loads and unloads pharmaceutical vials smoothly into and out from a freeze dryer with man-less operator monitoring. This frame-less transport of vials is suitable for integration into a RABS or an Isolator.

Using ALUS® vials remain covered by laminar air flow during the loading process, and there are no moving parts above the open vials that might create contamination. ALUS also complies with ATEX guidelines for drugs needing alcohol-based solvents.

The benefits of using ALUS® are:

• Minimized risk of product contamination: no moving parts above open vials during loading and unloading,
• High throughput: maximum speed of up to 500 vials/min for loading and 700 vials/min for unloading,
• Highly flexible through very quick format part change,
• Easy cleaning, operation and maintenance: compact design and strict separation of production and maintenance without drives and electrical parts in the product room,
• Maximum availability and productivity by high-quality, durable construction,
• Prepared for applications involving highly potent drugs due to integration in RABS or Isolator,
• Lower investment and operating cost due to reduced footprint that allows smaller isolator and less space in production.

GEA Lyophil has the facilities to perform full FAT of ALUS® together with freeze dryers in-house thus reducing start-up time on-site.

ALUS® can serve as a retrofit option to give existing freeze dryers a new lease of life, whether originally supplied by GEA Lyophil or not.

Visit the GEA Pharma Systems stand at ACHEMA, hall 4, stand D13 – G22.

Learn more at Achema
Also during the week of the show experts from GPS will be presenting seminars and sharing their knowledge on the key subjects that are vitally important to the needs of today’s pharmaceutical solid dosage manufacturer: continuous processing, containment, compression and freeze drying including ALUS® (Automatic Loading and Unloading System) and FlexStream™. These are likely to be very popular so it’s essential for visitors to pre-register by following the instructions on www.geapharmasystems.com/achema.