Bayer contract aids Probitas expansion

Grifols Engineering has signed an agreement with the Biological Products division at Bayer Healthcare in the USA to supply patented pharmaceutical engineering equipment for its manufacturing plant for blood and plasma products in Clayton, North Carolina.

Grifols, a subsidiary of Spain's Probitas Pharma, develops systems and equipment, production plants and machinery for the Spanish holding company's own production companies and also offers pharmaceutical engineering services to third-party companies.

Probitas Pharma said the agreement means the consolidation of its position in the pharmaceutical engineering industry. This step forward is in accordance with the company's policy to expand into North America, where it already markets plasma derivatives, such as albumin, as well as diagnostic and testing instruments through its Grifols USA subsidiary.

Grifols Engineering offers global pharmaceutical engineering solutions to Probitas Pharma companies and also to the pharmaceutical industry. The company has designed and developed an innovative system that speeds up and automates the process for emptying bottles of plasma, the first step in the production process that takes place before plasma is fractionated to obtain different blood products.

The machine was developed as an automated line to open and empty bottles of plasma. It has been designed so that raw materials are in an environmentally controlled environment in the first stage of production.