Better Health, Brighter Future
OSAKA, Japan and CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, May 9, 2023 – Takeda (TSE:4502/NYSE:TAK) today announced that the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has awarded the company top honors in the Social Impact category for the 2023 Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA). Takeda was recognized for accelerating a shift to sustainable facility design, intended to ensure the effective use of energy, minimize waste, reduce carbon footprint, incorporate green manufacturing techniques and reduce environmental impact at its plasma-derived therapies production site in Lessines, Belgium.
For more than 50 years, the Lessines site has been transforming human plasma into life-changing and life-sustaining medicines. The award-winning facility is one of several production lines at the site. Opened in August 2022, the state-of-the art facility produces a sterile, ready-to-use, liquid purified human Alpha-1 Antitrypsin protein that is used to make medicines to treat people with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, a genetic condition that may result in serious lung and/or liver disease. The facility operates with the latest digital and sustainable technologies.
“We are very proud to be recognized by ISPE in the FOYA Social Impact category. Our approach to manufacturing is driven by our unwavering commitment to address patient needs and sustainability.” said Thomas Wozniewski, global manufacturing and supply officer, at Takeda. “We constantly try to identify opportunities for improvement throughout our global manufacturing network, and drive initiatives that help achieve our ambitious environmental goals, such as reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in our operations before 2035, reducing fresh water consumptions and waste and developing more sustainable products.”
“Our Lessines manufacturing site is one of the most advanced sites with regard to digitalization and the reduction of environmental impact of manufacturing operations,” said Gunter Baumgartner, global head of engineering, at Takeda. “The site was the first in the global Takeda manufacturing network to pioneer a rain and waste water treatment system enabling the awarded facility to reduce its freshwater consumption by 60 percent or save 36 million liters of freshwater annually. Our team at Lessines made environmental innovation part of their mission and the award honors every site employee for their contribution.”
Our Lessines manufacturing site is an important part of Takeda’s global manufacturing network. The site produces therapies which require energy and water-consuming production processes. Therefore, special attention is paid to the design and energy efficiency in order to optimize those processes.
The electricity consumption of 4,2GWh/year which is covered by 100% renewable electricity and produced mainly on-site, having reduced its CO2 emissions by 861 tons. Solar panels, biogas and soon geothermal energy and wind turbines will cover 100% of the site’s heat and electricity needs. The awarded facility is also equipped with a smart Building Management System (BMS) that helps optimize energy usage. The electricity generated by the solar panels is also used to supply 70 on-site electric car charging stations.
Digitalization is key to improving processes, supporting the employees and reducing the environmental impact. The facility is operating fully paperless, collecting all necessary information through the Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). Procedures are all digitalized and accessible through QR codes. Virtual tours through 3D scanning allow for remote access to all manufacturing areas for investigations or site visits. Training modules exist to replicate aseptic activities in a virtual, stress-free, and secure environment. The use of augmented reality throughout the facility results in a significant reduction in human errors and supports the site’s ‘right first time’ culture.
The connections between a changing climate and global public health are clear. Therefore it is anticipated to exacerbate challenges to people’s health around the world. At Takeda, environmental stewardship is embedded in our corporate philosophy and guides our actions. We have actively engaged in environmental stewardship initiatives for more than 50 years, beginning with the establishment of Takeda’s Environmental Protection Committee in 1970. We have attained carbon neutrality across our entire value chain since 2020 and have set ambitious goals for climate action, including achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in our own operations (scope 1 and 2) before 2035 and across our entire value chain before 2040.
Takeda recognizes the critical need for responsible water management and works to address water scarcity and water quality while minimizing our impact on water supply in the communities in which we operate. We are committed to continue to work within our operations to innovate and minimize our water footprint. Our responsible waste management initiatives enabled us to divert over 80 percent of our waste from landfill in 2022. We also started to embed sustainability principles in our product development to reduce the environmental impact of our medicines throughout its lifecycle.
Established in 2004, the Facility of the Year Awards (FOYA) recognizes state-of-the-art projects utilizing new, innovative technologies to improve the quality of products, reduce the cost of producing high-quality medicines, and demonstrate advances in project delivery. The FOYA program provides a platform for the pharmaceutical science and manufacturing industry to showcase its accomplishments in facility design, construction, and operations, while sharing the development of new applications of technology and cutting-edge approaches. For more information, visit ISPE.org/Facility-Year-Awards.
Takeda in Lessines has over 1,200 employees, from 23 nationalities, who are dedicated to delivering products on time and with the highest level of quality to - currently - over 300,000 patients in 80 countries worldwide per year. The site’s purpose is to serve patients with rare diseases and other special conditions. It is a Centre of Excellence for the purification of immunoglobulins, with filling and packaging capacity for plasma-derived therapies and packaging capacity for hematology products.
As a trusted global leader and industry partner who is reimagining plasma and exploring its untapped potential, Takeda’s Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit is dedicated to transforming the lives of patients worldwide who rely on these lifesaving and life-sustaining therapies.
With an 80-year legacy of developing treatments for rare and complex chronic diseases, we thrive on innovation, offering a broad, differentiated portfolio of more than 20 plasma medicines with integrated care solutions to patients in more than 80 countries. Powered by ~ 17,000 Takeda employees, our > 230 high-quality BioLife donation centers, a dedicated R&D team, and eight world-class plasma manufacturing facilities, we are unleashing data, digital and technology to transform our end-to-end operations and set new industry standards.
This enables us to innovatively and sustainably meet the growing and changing needs of patients, our people, and our planet, today and in the future.
Takeda is a global, values-based, R&D-driven biopharmaceutical leader headquartered in Japan, committed to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments, guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Takeda focuses its R&D efforts on four therapeutic areas: Oncology, Rare Genetics and Hematology, Neuroscience, and Gastroenterology (GI), with expertise in immune and inflammatory diseases. We also make targeted R&D investments in Plasma-Derived Therapies and Vaccines. We are focusing on developing highly innovative medicines that contribute to making a difference in people’s lives by advancing the frontier of new treatment options and leveraging our enhanced collaborative R&D engine and capabilities to create a robust, modality-diverse pipeline. Our employees are committed to improving quality of life for patients and to working with our partners in health care in approximately 80 countries and regions. For more information, visit https://www.takeda.com.
Megan Ostrower
+1 772-559-4924
Jun Saito
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