News

Asahi Kasei Medical has completed the construction of a new plant for the spinning of hollow-fiber membranes for Planova™ BioEX filters at the site of its Planova™ Oita Plant in Oita, Japan.

Planova™ BioEX virus removal filters, which incorporate hydrophilic PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) hollow-fiber membranes, are used in the production process for biotherapeutic products such as biopharmaceuticals and plasma derivatives. The hollow-fiber membranes produced at the new spinning plant will be used in the assembly of Planova™ BioEX filters at plants in Oita and Nobeoka. With the new plant, the company's total supply capacity for Planova™ BioEX filters will increase to 10,000 m²/year.

Asahi Kasei Medical will continue to contribute to greater safety of biotherapeutic products by developing high-quality and high-performance products in accordance with market needs, while proactively investing in manufacturing facilities.

Outline of the new spinning plant:
Location: Oita, Japan (within Asahi Kasei Medical plant grounds)
Structure: Two stories above ground, 2,900 m² total floor area
Completion: September 2016
Start-up: October 2017 (scheduled)

Key features of Planova™ BioEX filters:
- Optimized for filtration under high protein concentrations
- Suited to high pressure filtration
- SIP (steam in place) compatible
- Superior validated virus filtration performance, even with small parvoviruses
- Various filter surface area sizes, making for easy scale up or scale down

Spinning plant for Planova™ BioEX filters

For more information, please contact:
Asahi Kasei Corporation
Corporate Communications
Phone: +81-(0)3-3296-3008