1. Contamination Control in Pharmaceutical Industry
Maintaining sterility and contamination control are important factors in any of the pharmaceutical industry.
Most, if not all chemicals naturally contain some degree of contamination, however, even low levels of
contaminants can be expensive or possibly hazardous.
In cleanroom labs, the unlikely presence of contaminants can call surprise reactions and deviate from
actual results. In drug/ medical equipment manufacturing, contaminants can include toxins that convert a
medicine into a poison, while infected medical devices can transmit pathogens to patients.
People came to different ways to manufacture contaminant-free products, ranging from sterilization to
containment and contamination control, depending on the degree of sterilization you require. Often this
combination works well both in terms of safety and efficacy.
Limiting the contamination leads to various options available in the market. From laminar airflow, sealed
transfer hatches to disposable containment systems for individual processes. They provide
complementary protection against infection and avoid cross-contamination.
In the pharmaceutical industry, decontamination is the first step to proceed further. Everything from
laboratory instruments to glassware and processing equipment should be sterilized. All the glass wares
are sterilized in the lab with the help of autoclave. Other options include dry heat sterilizers and chemical
vapour sterilizers (often using hydrogen peroxide vapour – HPV). HPV decontamination systems involve
the release of hydrogen peroxide vapour (H2O2), a powerful disinfectant that combats viruses, fungi and
bacteria.
Cleanrooms provide an isolated, ventilated area for safe handling of chemicals and biologicals.
Cleanrooms cannot prevent contamination altogether, but help to keep contamination to a limited level,
protecting cleanroom products from contamination from the environment, safeguarding chemists and
researchers against hazardous chemicals and biologicals in the cleanroom, and sometimes protecting the
environment at major level from hazardous substances and pathogens.