Pharma Expertise
We understand that besides our high quality products, trust, dedication and experience are also essential to be a reliable supplier to the pharmaceutical industry. The Cargill pharma team has the industry expertise in order to fulfill the specific requirements of our customers.
We invite you to discover how we put this pharmaceutical industry expertise into practice:
Committed to creativity - The Application Center
Cargill's Application Center for Pharma, located in Vilvoorde (Belgium), has accumulated experience and know-how for working with a broad variety of specialty ingredients in many pharmaceutical application fields.
The Application Center is equipped with state-of-the-art technology, including advanced tableting machines, a colloidal vacuum mixer, granulators and pilot equipment for the development of medicated confectionery. In addition, several on-site laboratories allow our experts to perform various analyses and quality control checks in-house. Other unique facilities include an on-line patent research service and a constantly expanding series of networked databases that provide relevant access to unique product and application know-how.
The Application Center also maintains close links with a number of universities, research centers, independent consultants and government bodies. Regular collaboration with these different groups ensures up-to-date knowledge of technical and scientific developments as well as legal aspects of new product development.
In the continually evolving pharmaceutical industry, this ensures a constant exchange of knowledge and experience which promotes an indispensable creative synergy necessary to keep our customers one step ahead.
Dedicated team
We clearly understand that the needs of the pharmaceutical industry can be very different to those of our food customers, and therefore we are developing closer ties with our pharmaceutical customers. These close contacts facilitate our continuous advance on drug delivery system expertise, regulatory insight and manufacturing standards.
In order to be a reliable and trusted supplier to the pharmaceutical industry, we have built a dedicated team of experienced pharma specialists in functions such as account management, quality assurance, regulatory affairs and plant engineering. This strongly connected and dedicated pharma team enables Cargill to offer our pharmaceutical customers a specific contact person with in-depth knowledge of their specific requirements. From Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) raw material processing to compendial compliance and application knowledge, our team expertise goes from start to finish.
Quality management and regulatory support (Manufacturing standards / Quality assurance)
Our quality management group has pharmaceutical industry specialists dedicated to ensuring our products comply with the relevant monographs, and are also manufactured in line with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). It is our policy for all our pharma grade products to comply with the relevant legal requirements relating to the countries in which our products are made and sold.\
We operate a Quality Assurance program under which management systems are developed to fulfill the necessary requirements for Product Safety and Product Quality in our manufacturing sites, supply chain and associated toll processing operations. Timely and accurate information on all matters of product safety will be provided to customers, appropriate government agencies and the public at large.
The cornerstones of our Quality Assurance program:
- ISO 9001 certified plants throughout Europe
- Most excipient channels are in line with IPEC GMP guidelines for pharmaceutical excipients
- Production of IV-glucose and IV-mannitol in line with ICHQ7a GMP guidelines
- In-process control
- Specialized packaging
- Full traceability
- Compliance with leading compendia monographs
- Environmental management systems
Regulatory insight
Within our team we have specialists that closely follow the pharmaceutical regulatory environment. The regulatory environment of the pharmaceutical industry is constantly changing and we recognize the need not only to track these changes but also more importantly to anticipate and bring about change, driving forward improved methods for the way in which excipients are used and manufactured.
To ensure that we are at the forefront of regulatory developments, we actively participate in the European Pharmacopoeia and related harmonization committees. Cargill is also a member of the International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council Europe (IPEC) and the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Committee (APIC).