Bio-Decontamination Equipment & Biological Safety Cabinets from BIOQUELL (UK) Ltd

BIOQUELL are world leaders in the provision of bio-decontamination equipment, fume cupboards and biological safety cabinet products for healthcare, life sciences and defence applications. Unique patented Hydrogen Peroxide Vapour (HPV) Clarus™ technology destroys unwanted bacteria, viruses and fungi from all exposed surfaces.

BIOQUELL systems provide ''residue-free'', safe and repeatable disinfection and decontamination of rooms, buildings and equipment, making HPV the clear alternative when replacing formaldehyde, a chemical now confirmed by the World Health Organisation as a carcinogen, and other sterilant delivery systems.

BIOQUELL for Healthcare

With HPV having proven efficacy against all the major causes of Healthcare Associated Infection, (MRSA, VRE, Acinetobacter, C.difficile, Klebsiella etc.), BIOQUELL are enjoying considerable success in the healthcare market where they offer a practical solution to this high profile cross-infection issue.

In fact, BIOQUELL's technology has been awarded Rapid Review Panel category one status by the Department of Health, meaning "Basic research and development, validation and recent in use evaluations have shown benefits that should be available to NHS bodies to include as appropriate in their cleaning, hygiene or infection control protocols."

As a result of this upgrade, BIOQUELL's technology was placed in seven showcase hospitals across the UK so NHS practitioners could see first hand products and services being used and get to understand the benefits associated with their use.

Following the success of these placements, BIOQUELL were recently awarded a prestigious HCAI Technology Award by the DoH and NHS PASA, recognising the contribution made by BIOQUELL's unique technology in controlling Clostridium difficile.

BIOQUELL offer various solutions to suit hospitals requirements including:

Proactive Service: A team of BIOQUELL engineers based permanently on a hospitals own site to decontaminate areas when required as part of a routine programme or following contamination by patients with nosocomial infections. Areas can be decontaminated overnight if required so areas are ready to put back into service rapidly.

Scheduled Service: Allows the scheduled bio-decontamination of contaminated rooms or equipment through the deployment of BIOQUELL engineers with specialist HPV equipment. This deployment option can be most effective in situations such as the regular decontamination of C. diff cohort wards.

Outbreak Service: Emergency call-out of a BIOQUELL outbreak team to rapidly and discreetly following potential contamination. Equipment can also be decontaminated in the affected zones, ensuring all compromised equipment can safely be transferred from the affected area following decontamination. Examples of where this service is best utilised include bio-decontamination following Serratia contamination of incubators in a neonatal unit or MDR-Acinetobacter outbreak in an ICU.

Equipment solution: BIOQUELL also offer an equipment purchase solution, where hospitals prefer to keep decontamination ''in house''. BIOQUELL provide in depth training and certification for use of the equipment as well as comprehensive aftersales service support.

Tailored solution: BIOQUELL can happily tailor one or all of the solutions to suit a hospitals individuals needs.

BIOQUELL for Life sciences

BIOQUELL have extensive worldwide experience in providing solutions for contamination issues across the life sciences sector, in both GMP and GLP environments including biotechnology, pharmaceutical, bio-medical, bio-safety, food production and research facilities.

The complexity and diversity of these industries require specific solutions to a range of contamination issues. This can range from scheduled, routine bio-decontamination to emergency decontamination.

BIOQUELL's solutions can be used to manage and control accidental contamination, reducing production downtime and therefore reducing cost of shutdown. Where applied in a laboratory or R&D setting, HPV decontamination can be used to decrease hindrance to drug discovery and to provide the microbiologically clean areas required for this type of sensitive work.

Typical decontamination applications include:

• Clean room decontamination (up to Class 1)
• Rigid and flexible isolators
• Pass through's, transfer hatches and material airlocks
• Transfer chamber / MAL's
• Production areas
• Laboratories up to BSL3
• Robotic enclosures
• Aseptic transfer

BIOQUELL's offering for the life sciences industry includes:

• BIOQUELL Z - the latest concept in HPV full zone decontamination. Simple to operate and fully mobile for rapid deployment it can be used for both routine and emergency decontamination. With fast and fully automated cycles via the unique parametric control feature, this unit can give repeatable and reliable eradication of bio-burden from zones, rooms or buildings.
• Clarus C - is a multi-function HPV generator providing high-level disinfection and surface disinfection capability for volumes up to 350cu.m. This system is used for the bio-decontamination of rooms, chambers, containment isolators, process and laboratory equipment for research and production in tightly controlled pharmaceutical manufacturing environments.
• Clarus L - compact and mobile, can be used to bio-decontaminate a wide range of laboratory equipment and is safe and easy to operate. For common laboratory equipment such as biological safety cabinets it can be used to replace formaldehyde, which is safer and also completely residue-free. It can also be used to decontaminate pharmacy isolators and other specialist equipment such as IVC systems.
• Clarus PORT - an advanced HPV rapid decontamination chamber. Because of the rapid decontamination cycle - typically 15 minutes - it is possible to utilise the very latest in sporicidal gassing techniques recommended in EC GMP-s for -just in time- transfer of materials, equipment and components.
• Room Bio-Decontamination Service (RBDS) - is a unique service, used for high level HPV decontamination of enclosed spaces; ranging from vehicles to entire buildings. Using RBDS offers many key benefits; firstly as the process is so rapid, facility downtime is kept to a minimum, saving money by decreasing wasted production time. Each cycle is fully verified using industry standard Biological Indicators and has proven efficacy against a wide range of micro-organisms.
• Equipment Bio-Decontamination Service (EBDS) - bio-decontamination service for a wide range of laboratory equipment including biological safety cabinets, HEPA filtration enclosures, incubators, centrifuges and robotic equipment.

Biological Safety Cabinets and Fume Cupboards

BIOQUELL also manufacture a range of Biological Safety Cabinets and Fume Cupboards for extraction and containment under the Microflow and Astec brands and are one of the dominant players in laboratory containment and fume filtration / extraction.

Based in Hampshire, UK, BIOQUELL now has growing operations around the world, including subsidiary companies in America and France.