having worked many years in the pharmaceutical industry myself I've seen all of this firsthand these are questions that face everybody take a pharmaceutical company today's biopharm industry is a complex world the pharmaceuticals are complex and no less complex of the processes that manufacture them unfortunately the many guidelines and standards that regulate the industry don't make things any easier even experienced engineers have difficulty understanding the various GMPs the language is formal and vague and the way the GMPs are worded can be downright confusing it's no surprise that for every GMP there are many interpretations so what do the GMP's really say in short they don't provide any specific answers as Per-Åke Ohlsson head of Alfa Laval market unit farm equipment explains they contain general principles that must be understood and applied correctly to find the solution for a given situation the sole purpose of the GMPs is to make processes safer and better but the GMPs complexity and the difficulty of designing biopharm production systems means some of the basic truths get lost when the guidelines are not fully understood people keep doing what they've always done and that may or may not be what's best Per-Åke together with his colleagues at Alfa Laval would like to bring some clarity into biopharm production by highlighting the principles behind the GMPs on the biopharm pages of the Alfa Laval website they've boiled down the GMPs for equipment into manageable concepts allowing you to look at the real issues what people in the industry want to know is how all these little things affect the big picture what does a well-done mean for contamination risk for example how can internal equipment design facilitate cleaning and what should be expected in spare part documentation the GMPs have implications but they seldom provide straight answers help is available on the biopharm pages of Alfa Laval calm within the key areas of equipment performance documentation and hygiene Per-Åke and his colleagues provide insights into biopharm concerns you'll learn about potential equipment pitfalls and how to avoid them and about saving time and money in the process we've even included information about how Alfa Laval approaches these issues with examples of how we incorporate the GMP principles into our own products in addition there are downloadable white papers for those who want great the depth see for yourself by exploring the biopharm pages at Alfa Laval calm and be sure to check back for new developments if by chance you can't find what you're looking for Per-Åke would be there to help you out these are the same issues I discussed select use some by phone conferences and the website is a perfect forum to continue the dialogue my team and I are always on hand to help you find solutions and defined our contact information on the website you