RECLAMATION OF INJECTABLE DRUG FROM GLASS CONTAINERS

Background / Requirement

Many pharmaceutical products, especially those that are designed to be injected directly into the blood stream, are notoriously expensive. It is common sense to try to reclaim otherwise waste quantities of these drugs. After the drugs are packaged in glass bottles or syringes, this reclamation becomes both time consuming and difficult. A large international producer of an expensive, brand name, injectable drug approached Quadro with a problem they were having in liberating a liquid from glass bottles and syringes so that it could be reclaimed. Due to the proprietary nature of the product it will be called drug “X” from this point on. In the filling department, bottles (20ml to 100ml) and syringes (7mm x 96mm) are prepared with sterile drug “X” solution and later checked for biological potency, sterility and other parameters. Some preparations don’t pass the final check and are returned to the production department in order to regenerate the drug. The first step in the regeneration is to break the bottles/syringes and collect the drug “X” solution. The glass is then separated from the solution and washed with an appropriate dissolution liquid to obtain maximum yield. The solution then is cleaned of any fine glass particles by microfiltration and the concentrated drug “X” is separated from the water/dissolution liquid by a very controlled process. The drug “X” is then reprocessed for sale.