Hycon: Testament To Ireland’s Success in the Pharma Business
GMP and FDA requirements for quality and cleanliness in cleanrooms and production plants have been increasing in stringency and complexity for years. However, the pharmaceutical, biotech, and food industries are still struggling to identify approaches that adhere to hygiene guidelines while reducing the financial and labour costs of installation and maintenance. This is particularly evident in the area of cabling. Planners and end-users must cope with welded pipes, PVC-coated conduits, or cable trays that are difficult to clean, maintain, and alter. However, planners and end-users in Ireland have consistently adopted a system that meets all GMP requirements, is easy to install and maintain, stylish in appearance and cuts costs.
Dunreidy developed the Hycon (HYgienic CONtainment) system in response to feedback from the many planners and international pharmaceutical companies, whose presence in Ireland has propelled the country to become the European Union’s largest net exporter of pharmaceuticals. Hycon is a modular stainless steel cable containment system specially developed for cleanrooms. It is available in two series – the Hycon O and the Hycon S. The Hycon O is a fully-sealed system, to IP 66 Category 1 rating, that can be bonded with a Loctite agent to add greater mechanical strength. The Hycon S can be an enclosed, semi-enclosed, or open-ended system, which can also be bonded with Loctite to achieve an IP66 rating. The system is complemented by a range of accessories and components, enabling greater flexibility in its installation.
One of the first planners outside Ireland to adopt this system was Pharmadule in Sweden. Following installation of the system at a production plant, Des Currivan of Pharmadule, noted that the Hycon enabled them to completely rethink cleanroom installation: “Instead of being limited by the traditional installation practices we were able to incorporate the Hycon into the cleanroom in a way that made the room more serviceable from a production point and which allowed the process operators to have a better working environment.”
Hycon’s advantages over other solutions are apparent, as there is no welding involved, the system can be easily and quickly installed and maintained. A study by Chemie Technik on industry attitudes towards the use of detachable joints in connector systems for pipes and tubes revealed that nearly 100% of end-users considered ease of installation to be significant when choosing connector systems.
John Gardiner, Electrical Engineer with IVAX (Ireland), commented that the ease of assembly and adaptability were amongst Hycon’s significant attributes. Hycon’s workability, “due to its push together/zero welding nature” was praised by the electrical contractor. “[Hycon is also] easily modified if instrumentation/equipment is relocated or added.”
A common issue that planners in Germany and Switzerland have approached Dunreidy about is routing cabling through cleanroom walls and ceilings. Using Hycon, planners have been able to integrate cabling into the cleanroom environment seamlessly. The result is a quality conduit system that is easily cleanable and visually impressive. Des Currivan of Pharmadule notes that he was called to the project manager’s office almost immediately after a client’s process engineers conducted an inspection walk-through of the cleanroom facilities. The client’s engineers were very worried that no process cabling or conduits had been installed in the cleanrooms. It was with great pleasure that he could inform them that the cabling process was 85% complete in all rooms and that the installation was so discreet that the engineers had not noticed it.
Cost savings, while often difficult to estimate, is one of Hycon’s leading advantages over other solutions. The electrical contractor Kurihara Kogyo, which worked on a Pfizer plant in Singapore, noted that Hycon’s wide range of fittings helped the company “speed up installation work and save valuable time”. James Murphy of Pharmadule (Sweden) states that “everything we have ever asked for has been handled with speed and efficiency at a low competitive cost. I would highly recommend Dunreidy Engineering for Cleanroom containment systems”.
The overall feedback from planners and end-users on Hycon has been excellent. Indeed, over 80% of new orders come from repeat customers. To date, the system has been installed in production plants for companies such as Eli Lilly, Genzyme, IVAX, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Schering-Plough (now Schwarz Pharma), and Wyeth. Dunreidy’s Hycon is a testament to the pharmaceutical engineering expertise that has sustained Ireland as one of the world’s most significant pharmaceutical production clusters for over four decades.
