Henry Blair and Sherry Snyder started Genzyme in June 1981. Today, it has over 6,000 employees worldwide. Genzyme recently acquired a 31-acre site in Waterford, Ireland, and built a new facility to accommodate expanding production for various products including one of their big sellers Renagel. In 2002 they purchased a cone valve IBC system that handled the powders prior to tableting, post tableting, and then finally from the coater to printing and packaging. To cope with fast increasing demand, they needed to add more and larger tablet IBCs.
Genzyme did trial work on an ISL “Upgrade” Station adapted to work on existing IBCs. This cured a capacity problem as the ISL Station has a very much higher lift force so could work on larger batches. They were very impressed with the tremendous simplicity, ease of cleaning, and low maintenance aspects of the ISL system. They visited Klinge Pharma, (case studies 007 & 010) to see an ISL System. Klinge confirmed these benefits and showed the ISL System dosing accurately to 20 grams. Genzyme went to tender for new larger IBCs and for solutions for existing problems – including trapping tablets when closing the valve. This had long been an industry problem that no one to date had solved. After accessing the proposals, Genzyme awarded the contract to ISL for Tablet IBCs that valve completely tight without trapping or breaking tablets.
Today, the original Tablet IBCs and Station have been completely replaced by the ISL system.