Filtra Teknopak Cleanroom Systems Ltd, Mumbai known as Teknopak has announced the commissioning of their second production facility, located at Dombivili, on July 5 exactly nine years after they started off in 1993. The company became the first ISO 9001 accredited Cleanroom Company of India in December 2000. This factory is dedicated to the manufacture of their full range of Bioclean Devices: depyrogenating tunnels, laminar air flow work stations, biosafety cabinets, air showers, and other accessories and consumables for clean and controlled environments.

Widely acknowledged as a major cleanroom player in pharma, healthcare, biotechnology, atomic energy, aerospace and other allied fields, Teknopak already has a dedicated manufacturing unit at Hyderabad where they manufacture modular cleanrooms - movable walls, ceilings, doors etc., - in various materials of construction including high pressure laminates, stainless steel, powder coated steel or aluminium.

In a press conference, Sasidharan S Menon, a Director of the company explained, "Ever since we were granted ISO 9001accreditation, we have endeavoured to implement the quality norms in letter and spirit. Teknopak specialises in providing end-to-end microcontamination and biosafety solutions, and over the years our inputs from DQ stage to FQ and post-FQ stages have been recognised and appreciated. Towards this we built up adequate internal infrastructure for in-house execution of turnkey projects for cleanrooms. Until now our Bioclean Devices were out-sourced from Cleanair Systems and Devices, Umbergaon. Imposing our quality policy on an external agency is always fraught with difficulties, and we soon realised that our quest for quality would be best served only if we had 100% control over the manufacturing process."

"As a logical consequence, we have now invested in our captive plant, which, of course, signals the cessation of our arrangement with Cleanair Sytems and Devices," he concluded.

To a question as to the long term strategical positioning of Teknopak, K Bhaskaran, the other Director responded, "With 2005 looming on the horizon when compliance regime becomes mandatory for input qualification, we hope to have adequate time to compete with the best in the world in terms of both quality and performance." "For example," he added, "During our travel overseas we found that overseas manufacturers had moved way ahead of us in terms of HEPA and ULPA filter manufacturing and testing. Hence, rather than reinvesting in hopelessly outdated technology for manufacture of these items in-house, we have strategically tied up with Korea Airtech Corporation, Seoul. Needless to mention, each of these filters will be tested again by us, both at our works, and, in-situ."