Valve development could cut injections

Published: 21-Nov-2001


A valuable contribution to the development of an inhalable form of insulin that will allow many diabetes patients to stop using daily injections has come from ITT Engineered Valves.

ITT has been working closely with engineers at Inhale Therapeutics for five years, since it began its first phase of expansion and scale up for clinical trial production. At the time, ITT provided special Pure-Flo divert valves for Inhale Therapeutics' low volume processing, but was asked to supply valves modified to fit in a 0.25in line for the trial processing. Now in Phase 6 of the project, ITT Engineered Valves has provided hundreds of Pure-Flo diaphragm valves, including divert valves for the same process scaled up to 1.5in line size.

In addition, 40 Pure-Flo zero-static valves, which eliminate dead legs in the WFI (water for injection) system, were used. With the input of Inhale process engineer, Jeff Boesiger, ITT designed these zero-static valves into multiple valve assemblies, or clusters. These cluster valves enabled the customer to install several valves together as a single unit, reducing hold-up volume, and saving time and money on the field piping fabrication.

The facility at Inhale Therapeutics is currently being validated to be ready for production the moment the FDA approves the inhalable insulin product.

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