New Partner Astellas Pharma

Controlling temperature can be challenging during industrial processes. Temperature in machines can rise considerably, which is not always in favor of the quality of the end-product. In case of some temperature exceedances, the product is even rejected, resulting in waste. Something we would like to avoid as much as possible. Recently Purplexus carried out an assignment at Astellas Pharma in Meppel to investigate the peak temperature during time-outs of a packaging machine in the production line.

Last year Purplexus worked with Astellas Pharma (Meppel) to find a solution to give more insight in temperature exceedance during packaging of their medication strips. One of the machines in the production line regularly stops working and a time-out occurs. During this time-out the temperature rises considerably in this machine where some medication strips are sealed . Astellas does not take any risk regarding their quality level and unfortunately rejects the entire batch of medication strips that was processed during the time-out.

According to the project leader Bert van der Vegt (Robert Nolte?) Astellas Pharma was looking for a solution to monitor temperature during packaging to avoid unnecessary rejection. With the help of Purplexus, Astellas Pharma is capable to investigate whether the temperature in the medication strips actually exceed the quality limit or not which in the end could lead to less rejections and thus less waste.

Purplexus adapts its sensor platform to give solutions regarding temperature monitoring. For Astellas Pharma Purplexus developed a very tiny sensor that is fits in medication strips and resists to very high temperatures during the sealing process. The sensor logs temperature from the start to the end of this process. For the team of Astellas Pharma these measurements gave insight information about the necessity of the rejection of the batch and also about possible improvements in their production process.

The biggest challenge for Purplexus was the adaptation of the sensor to very high temperatures -+180 ?C. Most sensors and/or power sources do not resist these temperatures and melt during the measurements. For this assignment Purplexus adapted the TB-02 Nano sensor to the dimensions of the medication strips and made the right adjustments to protect the sensor and the power source.