Staff Reports
ApiJect Systems, a medical technology company that develops devices to inject pharmaceuticals, announced the launch of The ApiJect Technology Development Center in the Orlando area.
The new facility will be devoted to working with pharmaceutical companies to design, engineer, and test how to fill and finish their injectable drugs in a new type of single-dose prefilled injector made using the ApiJect Platform.
“The ApiJect Center is where the future of injection technology will be created. The Center adds a critical development capability that supports ApiJect’s existing fill-finish lines at our manufacturing partner site in South Carolina, which currently has the capacity to produce up to 540 million single-dose prefilled injectors annually,” ApiJect CEO Jay Walker said Wednesday.
“Together, these facilities expand the domestic pharmaceutical supply chain and catalyze our ability here in the U.S. to be able to respond to key public health issues such as syringe shortages, syringe safety, and the critical need for surge fill-finish capacity — not only for this pandemic worldwide, but also for future pandemics and bio-emergencies.”
The center’s initial phase of design and construction was completed within nine months and on budget. When fully built out, The ApiJect Center will contain infrastructure for device prototyping and development that complies with the Food and Drug Administration’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice Regulations.
Walker added, “There has been much discussion in recent years — rightly focused, in my judgment — about the need to shorten supply chains and have critical technology here in the U.S. Our partners in the U.S. government have strongly emphasized this priority from the pandemic’s very beginning.
“The ApiJect Center has been created to serve just such a purpose. Its current footprint of 16,000 square feet is just a start. Over the next year, The ApiJect Center is planned to double in size. As our expansion is realized, the current BFS machines will be supplemented by an additional two machines. The ApiJect Center here in Central Florida will be ground zero for the future of injectable device technology.”
The Center is made possible in part thanks to $9.6 million in funding from the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. ASPR leads the federal government’s health care and public health preparedness, response and recovery efforts.
“Strengthening our nation’s health supply chain and expanding domestic manufacturing capacity are key priorities for ASPR,” said Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell. “We are pleased to support ApiJect’s efforts to develop new and innovative approaches to how injectable vaccines and medicines are filled, finished, and delivered so that the nation is prepared for future pandemics and health emergencies.”
Bob Ward, president and CEO of the Florida Council of 100 — a prominent nonprofit made up of the top 140 presidents and CEOs in the state that make recommendations on how to further grow the state’s economy — said the ApiJect expansion supports the Council’s lofty objectives.
“We are excited to welcome ApiJect as another great example of a medical technology company expanding the health innovation sector in Florida. ApiJect is exactly the kind of company that builds a strong economic future for our state and its citizens,” he said.
The first potential device made on the ApiJect Platform is the Prefilled ApiJect Injector, an injector designed to efficiently deliver a 0.5-milliliter dose into a patient with a simple squeeze of a BFS container by a health professional. BFS is short for “Blow-Fill-Seal” and describes the process of filling a container in a sterile environment without human intervention. The Prefilled ApiJect Injector will also allow for attachable components such as needle hubs.
