News Howorth Pharma Wins US $5 Million Order April 2006 Howorth Pharma, a world leader in the design and manufacture of pharmaceutical containment equipment, has recently been awarded a $5 million US contract - the largest in the company's history. The contract for a total of 29 barrier isolators was secured after the company successfully demonstrated that it could provide unique retrofit containment solutions to a number of complex existing pharmaceutical machines. Processes such as wet granulation, tray drying, fluid bed drying, milling, capsule coating, tablet pressing and coating are features of this project. The client's name and plant location are confidential. As part of the service, the dedicated team at Howorth prepared detailed arrangement drawings of each barrier isolator along with predicted forecast performance data. Following preliminary approval, full-scale ergonomic mock-ups of the containment systems were constructed at Howorth's UK facility, then shipped to the client's facility for interface with the existing machines and subsequent review with the user groups. Any modifications were made to the arrangement drawings, and incorporated into the detail design phase and subsequent manufacture. One unique aspect of the project was the flexibility of the client to release the existing machines into Howorth's possession for integration of the isolators to each individual machine. This resulted in significant time savings during the eventual installation process. During detailed engineering, Howorth designed numerous features of the isolators for commonality throughout the project. This approach provided considerable cost savings for the client with reduced stocking of spare parts, and also ensured familiarity for the users and maintenance teams across the full range of delivered isolators. Savings were also made by updating and thus prolonging the life of existing production machinery, rather than rendering it obsolete. Howorth's UK Operations Director, Graham Hind, says: "Howorth Pharma is delighted to have successfully secured this contract, which must be one of the world's largest single projects for this type of containment equipment."