Millipore India has made its mark as a comprehensive technology provider in the ultra pure water space. With the research and development activities in the pharma and biotech industries gather momentum in the country, the company catches with the trend through conducting regular awareness programmes through seminars, training sessions and exhibitions for laboratory specialists to maintain and expand its customer base, Rajeev Nair, general manager, Lab Water Division, Millipore India, stated in an email interview to Nandita Vijay. Excerpts:
What are the current trends in water equipment design?
As a leader in water purification systems, it becomes necessary for Millipore to take the lead in meeting the requirements of all kinds of users in industry. There are a large number of customers in the country today with small requirements of pure and ultrapure water and with limited budgets. Small labs with one or two HPLCs or requiring 2-3 litres of ultrapure water per day. For such users, Millipore has launched a new range of Direct-Q3 water purification systems. This system is unique in that it is capable of delivering both RO water and ultrapure water. It does so directly from tap water.
What about challenges faced by the lab equipment companies in the pharma-biotech space?
The key to success for any water purification system company is the ability to provide total pure and ultra pure water solutions. Everything from the tap water stage to the desired ultra pure water stage of purification. Not everybody can do this. In a country like ours, this is complicated as the quality of feed water varies from location to location and even with the seasons. Sometimes the feed water quality on one side of the road is drastically different from that on the other side.
Hence the solution provider really needs to have the knowledge, expertise and most importantly actual ground level experience in varied conditions. In this respect Millipore is miles ahead. With the largest number of service engineers and more than 15 years of operations in this area Millipore gained a lot of experience gained for varied applications. Prompt service to our customers wherever they may be is the other spin-off.
Now that the Good Laboratory Practices put in to force, how does the GLP get reflected in this sector ?
In today's context, qualification of water purification systems is becoming absolutely essential for the pharmaceutical industry. Qualification is an important protocol meet the requirements of regulatory authorities like US FDA. Millipore is the only company providing validation services (IQ/OQ/PQ) for water purification systems. This gives us a clear edge as pharmaceutical companies catering to developed countries prefer Millipore as their partner of choice. Another growing area is of customers seeking USP28 compliance. Once again we are the only company meeting these requirements.
Do you think, the lab water equipment segment in the country is currently in a phase of transformation?
An imminent trend that with the transformation taking place in the pharma and biotech industries is the criticality of traceability of data. This is an important aspect of Good Lab Practices (GLP). For instance, the Elix and Milli-Q range of water purification systems come with a built-in memory chip which allows users in the industry to store system performance data for a period of one year. The response to our systems makes it evident that this is a new need. In keeping with worldwide practices, this traceability aspect has been deeply appreciated.
We also find that more and more customers implementing GLPs and equipping their facilities as per standards in the advanced world. Clearly the change in mindset is not limited to the top few players and is now beginning to filter down. The pace and momentum is clearly encouraging. We at Millipore are playing a small part in this initiative through on-site and in-house training seminars to upgrade customers.