Switzerland
Vitaluce Apotheke AG needed new clean rooms in an existing listed building. These are used to process dermatological hormone products, human-identical hormones and micronutrients for the mail-order pharmacy.
[For the Willers project team], the focus was never on the problem, but always on finding the optimal solution. I really appreciated that about the whole process.
Jeannine Kohl
Managing Director of Toppharm Pharmacy Hochdorf
Managing Director of Toppharm Pharmacy Hochdorf
challenges
How do we build GMP-compliant cleanrooms in a listed building?
The old building presented us with a number of challenges. There were no access shafts, the load-bearing capacity of the ceilings was too low so that the monoblocks could not be hung from the ceiling, and the statics of the floor were not sufficient: the load-bearing capacity was only 250 kg/m2 (normal is around 1000 kg/m2). The capsule machine alone weighs 1000 kg/m2.
In addition, bringing in the components was a challenge, as the doors were small and there was no goods lift.
SOLUTIONS
Clean room implemented as a „room-in-room concept“.
Due to the circumstances, we opted for a room-in-room layout. This meant that the clean rooms were detached from the external façade. We thus created a controllable intermediate zone that could be used as a technical zone. This meant that we hardly had to touch the external façade, but were able to use it to support the loads of the technical components. The windows could still be opened and the existing heating system could be used.
We also decided to install a recirculation system. A separate recirculation system was installed in each zone with a product or processing step. These are supplied by a central fresh air system (top floor). This allowed us to use an existing cupboard niche as a riser zone and resulted in smaller air outlets on the roof in line with the preservation requirements. We were also able to save around 75% of energy thanks to the greatly reduced heating, cooling, humidification and dehumidification requirements of the system.
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