The West Blog

Latest Blogs

The need for advanced containment solutions, and novel fill-finish processing to enable implementation of these solutions, continues to grow as more complex drug products enter multiple pipelines. As biotech companies develop these complex drug products, the integration of product and process knowledge is crucial to delivering product safety, quality, identity, potency, and purity. And as biotech companies seek partners to help accelerate their development processes, West is committed to leading multi-disciplined, high-performance teams in developing optimal fill-finish solutions for novel packaging and container systems. This dynamic partnership is well-illustrated by the following case study.

Erik Anderson

October 21, 2021

Latest Blogs

By Your Side

Marisa Leuzzi

October 13, 2021

Latest Blogs

FluroTec COVID-19 Vaccines

Page McAndrew PhD

September 16, 2021

Latest Blogs

Germany Floods Philanthropy Our Culture Of Giving

In July, the western states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany experienced devastating floods caused by days of extreme rainfall. Our Eschweiler and Stolberg production sites and Kiefernweg Campus were not directly impacted; however, the communities were heavily affected. While we are thankful that none of our team members were injured, we empathize with many of them who are dealing with damage to their homes and personal property, as well as trauma caused by such a devastating event.

Gillian Power

September 14, 2021

Latest Blogs

Quality Enhancements Flurotec® Barrier Film

One of the challenges of sharing technical content is making the material engaging and easily digestible to many different types of learners. It must not only be scientifically accurate, but also needs to capture and keep the attention of the intended audience. The Knowledge Center on West’s website is a valuable repository of written and presented materials, created by the experts who develop and test our products. It is also now home to the Learning Center, a section of the Knowledge Center that shares information on a more introductory level, aimed at new employees or companies that are new to packaging. In an effort to continue enhancing our website content, we are now also starting to add new types of media. In the age of podcasts and vlogs (video blogs), we understand that video and audio are just as helpful (maybe more so!) for people trying to grasp a new concept.

Tara Haarlander

September 10, 2021

Previous Blogs

Vial Adapters Cell Therapy Applications Cell & Gene Therapy

West Vial Adapter Compatibility with Cell Therapies

By Amy Kim

January 19, 2021

As cell therapies are making their way to the market, safe and efficient transfer/delivery presents a challenge. Needles and syringes are commonly used to retrieve cell therapies from vials, posing the risk of needle stick injury. To address this, West has evaluated the suitability of its needle-free polycarbonate vial adapters (VAs) for withdrawing contents from vials from both a compatibility and performance standpoint.

Vial Adapters Cell Therapy Daikyo Crystal Zenith® cyclic olefin polymer

West’s Vial Adapters – A Safer Solution for Handling Cell Therapy Applications

By Heike Kofler PhD

October 12, 2020

Administration of cell therapy drug products requires the delivery of cell suspensions without loss of function or viability. Cells must be transferred aseptically from their original container closure system to the administration system by infusion. However, the common transfer practice of using needles and syringes to pierce vial stoppers to retrieve contents poses a risk, namely needle-stick injury to clinicians.

Transfer Devices Stoppers Spike Puncture Vial Adapters

Challenges with Stoppers for Transfer Devices

By Mary Tan

October 05, 2020

Coring, fragmentation, and stopper push-in are some of the common issues associated with rubber stoppers used with transfer devices (e.g., vial adapters). This is because they are punctured with spikes, which are significantly larger in diameter than needles, and are made from plastic materials.