BFS IOA European Conference and AGM in Antwerp, Belgium on 27-28 March 2007

We are pleased to invite all members to BFS IOA annual general meeting and conference in the beautiful city of Antwerp on 27-28 March 2007. It was earlier announced that the meeting was to be held in Brussels, but due to hotel availability, the meeting has been moved to Antwerp which is only 35 km from Brussels International Airport .

Presentations at the meeting will feature technical theme around “worldwide regulations for aseptic processing and meeting the requirements in Blow Fill Seal technology”.

PROGRAM:

DAY 1: March 27th - 11:30-17:00

  • Registration
  • Lunch buffet
  • Chairman’s Introduction, including introduction of new Board candidates
  • Keynote Presentation: EU & US Regulations and their effects on BFS operators
  • Review of Japanese GMP relating to BFS operation
  • Interpretation of the draft ISO 13408 with respect to BFS operation
  • Discussion on recent regulatory experiences with BFS operations
  • Summary and discussion

DAY 2: March 28th - 09:00-13:30

  • BFS IOA Annual General Meeting
  • Media Filling – How much is enough? – Meeting current requirements with BFS
  • Science vs Compliance – Environmental Monitoring of BFS Systems
  • Manufacturer perspective on current / future machine design by Brevetti Angela
  • The BFS IOA Points to Consider document – To publish or not? – A debate
  • Final summary and discussion
  • Close of meeting

Read more and get registration form....

Points to Consider – draft revision of updated version

Over the last year the BFS IOA has worked on an updated version of it’s internal Points to Consider document. The present edition was published in January 2003, however an update to the document is needed to make it more current and relevant/focused for BFS operations. The new draft edition was presented in 2006 at meetings in Washington and Bangkok and raised much discussion among our members. Therefore, before deciding to publish it – either internally or in e.g. PDA Journal - BFS IOA board seeks input from our members on the updated draft version. There will be a dedicated discussion session at the upcoming Brussels meeting to discuss the content of updated draft edition and how to publish the new edition of BFS IOA’s Points to Consider.

Annual General Meeting 2007

BFS IOA’s AGM for 2007 will be held in conjunction with the upcoming European meeting in Brussels. Accounts and budgets will be sent out separatly to all members at 3 weeks prior to the AGM together with voting forms for all who cannot participate in person at the AGM.

Election to BFS IOA board

At AGM 2007, Anders Löfgren will retire as chairman after serving two terms as technical officer followed by two terms as chairman. Also the position of Officer of Training & Education currently held by Martin Haerer is due for reselection

In addition, the BFS IOA board proposes to extend the board by another position to ease the workload of the current and future board. The new position will be a general board position that will participate in various ad-hoc work in the board. Nominated candidates for board positions are following:

Officer of Training & Education:

  • Martin Haerer (Holopack, Germany) will stand for another 2 year term

Chairman:

General board position (in alphabetic order):

BFS IOA membership for 2007

BFS IOA membership invoices for 2007 will be sent out to all current members in next few days. The membership fee will stay unchanged from previous years, i.e. EUR 1100 (USD 1350) per company. To ease the membership payments, invoices can also be paid by credit card by using the accompanying membership payment form for 2007. Once 2007 membership has been paid, we will send you your 2007 password for the BFS IOA website.

BFS IOA events in 2007

BFS IOA are planning following events in 2007:

  • European meeting & AGM ‘07 in Antwerp on March 27-28, 2007
  • USA meeting in Chicago in the week of June 11, 2007
  • Asia/Pacific meeting in Singapore on November 15-16, 2007

Call for papers and topics for upcoming BFS IOA meetings

As BFS IOA is an interest group organisation “for the members - by the members”; the board is welcoming any suggestions for relevant BFS topics at upcoming meetings. Also, we are inviting all members to volunteer with papers/presentations for forthcoming meetings. Please send your suggestions and/or abstracts to BFS@melitek.com.

Presentation from previous BFS IOA meetings

Please remember that presentation from past meetings can be accessed and downloaded in pdf-format on BFS IOA website.

We look forward to staying in touch with you during 2007 and hopefully meeting you at one of our planned events in Brussels, Chicago or Singapore.

Wishing you all much BFS success in 2007!

Jesper Laursen
BFS IOA Officer of Operation