Pharmaceutical, Biotech, and Personal Care Water Treatment

Offering a unique portfolio of technologies and services to support purified water and wastewater treatment
Pharma Professional

Veolia Water Technologies is the world leader in purified water and wastewater solutions. We will support you in meeting all regulatory requirements, from new water system design, installation, commissioning, validation and ongoing performance qualification, throughout the life of your system. 

Veolia understands the unique challenges that pharmaceutical and cosmetics face related to their water supply needs, such as:

  • Product Quality
  • Product Safety
  • Regulatory Compliance 
  • Operational Efficiency
  • Variability in Wastewater
  • Sewer Surcharge Reduction
  • Increased Resource Recovery
  • Risk Mitigation
  • Corporate Sustainability Initiatives
Sustainability in Pharma

Veolia provides equipment, as well as custom-tailored advanced solutions to leading pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies to meet their water quality, environmental, and economic challenges. 

Leading companies around the world have trusted Veolia with their high purity water and wastewater treatment challenges. When it comes to high purity water for pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies, high purification standards for performance and sustainability is critical.  Additionally, having an operator-friendly, easy-to-use pharmaceutical water system or cosmetic water system that can plug-and-play into your existing process expedites the project timeline and minimizes engineering costs. 

Related to wastewater, production facilities within this industry create a unique set of potential challenges, such as inconsistent wastewater characteristics and flows. Additionally, these sites have a large variety of pollutants in varying concentrations that need to be treated prior to discharge to the environment or municipality. 

 

Veolia provides its clients with an integrated approach to water management using innovative technologies, equipment, chemistry, and services. In addition to this integrated approach, our large team of global experts is able to provide comprehensive lab analysis, pilot-testing, and full-scale system design.

Veolia is experienced in helping clients reduce their financial exposure and comply with discharge requirements and stringent environmental regulations.   

High Purity Water
The pharmaceutical water market is unique because facilities producing pharmaceutical and cosmetic products rely on a consistent, high-quality, supply of water that is free of contaminants. Veolia offers a variety of plug-and-play products that can be integrated into the facility. These systems have various levels of treatment capabilities, including providing water for plant utilities, as well as for the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals / cosmetics.

Robust and Flexible Wastewater Treatment Processes
Pharmaceutical and cosmetic manufacturing facilities commonly produce a wide-range of products. This creates a high degree of variability in wastewater composition conditions or flows. As a result, Veolia is experienced in designing systems that can accommodate these variances to ensure consistent and reliable pharmaceutical water treatment. 

Water Footprint Reduction
To reduce a facility's water footprint, Veolia offers a wide variety of water reuse technologies. These pharmaceutical water treatment and reuse technologies can create significant value by allowing water to be reused within other parts of the facility. For example properly treated water can be reused in a facility's cooling tower or boiler systems. 

Mobile Water Treatment
Veolia Water Technologies provides mobile water and wastewater treatment solutions to cover emergency, temporary or long-term pharmaceutical water treatment needs. 

Case Study - AstraZeneca

Technology: AnoxKaldnes® MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor)

Leading pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, was in need of pharmaceutical water treatment to treat wastewater for its manufacturing location in Sweden. The facility discharged treated wastewater to a very sensitive body of water and needed a reliable and robust wastewater treatment system to remove toxic chemicals and organic content. 

Veolia installed a multi-stage AnoxKaldnes® MBBR system to treat for the various pollutants in the wastewater stream. The different stages within the wastewater system utilize very specific microfungi and other bacterial communities in order to target, detoxify, and reduce residual organic compounds within the wastewater stream.  

The wastewater facility was designed to treat up to 1,800  m3/d  (0.48  MGD) with loading rates up to 440  kg/d of TOC (Total Organic Carbon).  The system is able to remove 97% TOC, 80% Nitrogen, and 99% of Phosphorus. More importantly, environmental studies of the discharge point have shown that the receiving lake has not been subject to any negative effects.

Key Technologies

ORION™ Reverse Osmosis (RO) Systems

ORION™ is a skid-mounted, multi-technology purified water system. This system is specifically designed for the pharmaceutical, generics, healthcare and biotechnology markets. This system combines powerful reverse osmosis membrane treatment with continuous electrodeionization (CEDI) to supply a very high-quality water source. Additionally, the system can be fully or partially hot water sanitized.

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Ionpro™ LX

The IONPRO™ LX systems produce high purity water with low bacteria levels. Using advanced reverse osmosis combined with CEDI (continuous electrodeionization), this technology is able to produce very high quality water for flow rates from 500 to 1,000 liters per hour.

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Biothane® High-Rate Anaerobic Treatment System

This advanced anaerobic wastewater treatment technology allows for the treatment of wastewater streams that have high concentrations of organic material. These systems provide flexible and stable biological treatment, require low energy consumption, and produce low amounts of sludge when compared to other biological processes. 

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AnoxKaldnes™ MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor)

These high-performance biological systems are a versatile and reliable system for pharmaceutical and cosmetic wastewater treatment. The unique configuration of the biofilm on the media within the reactor allows for the system to adapt to varying conditions, without minimizing treatment capacity. The system can also be configured in series where unique micro floras can be cultivated to target specific pollutants and help clients achieve strict wastewater discharge limits. 

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Hydrotech Drumfilters & Discfilters

Filtration technology that uses woven media panels to remove suspended solids greater than 10 microns.

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IDRAFLOT® Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF)

This unique flotation technology creates powerful removal of FOG (Fats, Oils & Grease), TSS (Total Suspended Solids), and non-soluable COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand) in a very small footprint. IDRAFLOT® requires lower chemical dosing when compared to traditional DAF systems and are able to reach  very high levels of sludge thickness and effluent quality.

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EVALED® Evaporators

For very difficult to treat wastewater or "point-source" wastewater treatment upstream of the wastewater plant, EVALED provides highly-efficient evaporation in a very compact footprint. These systems are extremely energy efficient by allowing for the evaporation of water at low temperatures. These systems are also able to generate value from wastewater by creating a high-quality distillate, which can be reused within the facility. Additionally, the system is able to recover valuable by-products from the waste stream

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Lab Water

ELGA Lab Water Purification Systems

ELGA lab water purification systems are engineered to produce a consistent supply of high-purity water to support you in your research, process development,  and quality control activities within your lab. From producing general grade water (Type III) or Ultrapure Water (Type I), there are a variety of ELGA systems to ensure the water meets the required quality and quantity for your specific application.

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Featured Resources

Case Study - Leading Life Science Company 

Technology:  ORIONTM 500

The leading life science client needed to replace their existing aging water purification units. Veolia provided an ORION™ 500 high purity water system on the site to treat water that is used in production, as well as sanitization. The ORION system is able to meet the water demands of the site by creating a very high quality permeate at flows up to 500 liters/hour. The system also reduces their energy and water footprint. During periods of where the system is not in operation or in recycle mode, no RO reject water is discharged to the drain. A cooling heat exchanger also prevents high temperature water from being  discharged to the drain during extended recycle periods.

Pharmaceutical water services

For optimum performance and peace of mind

With tightly regulated specifications, ongoing compliance is vital to your business. For more than 100 years, We have installed and serviced complex water treatment technologies around the globe. Our pharmaceutical services will support you to maintain ongoing system compliance with regulations and maximize system uptime.

We offer a wide range of services, a full-time in-house engineers team, dedicated support staff and an experienced technical support team. We have also combined the expertise of our employees with digital power (Hubgrade) to process data and provide you with a continuous supply of optimized solutions adapted to your priorities.

Our services will help you:

  • Reduce your non-compliance risk
  • Reduce costly downtime
  • Keep high productivity
Aquaservice Workers

For more information on our pharmaceutical water services

What is Aquaservice™?

Aquaservice is a service offer that supports you week in and week out, ideal for pharmaceutical organizations like yours. Our standard service contract includes maintenance visits, emergency technical support and emergency response on-site.

When you need more than our standard Aquaservice, we work closely with you to identify and help prevent potential risks to your organization by offering a service bundle tailored to your needs.

 

Aquaservice bundles

Our customized packages help you meet production targets while keeping costs and risk under control. We make sure your water system validation and compliance is maintained, production demands are met and water and energy saving is continually optimized.

To create the perfect service fit for your organization, you can add the bundles that best suit your needs:

  • Compliance
  • Remote support
  • Response
  • Consumables and parts
Aquaservice Logo

Meet Our Team

David Summers

David Summers

US Pharma & Biotech Industry Manager

Cary, NC

Chris Harvey

Chris Harvey

National Sales Director

Pennsauken, NJ

Aymeric Simon

VP of Strategy & Marketing - Sales Light Industry

Canada

Phil Stanga

Phil Stanga

Director  of Business Development

Dayton, OH

More services for pharmaceutical and cosmetic clients

A combination of digital tools and Veolia expertise that make all your water processes smarter, safer and more sustainable.
Bundling high performance specialty chemicals, innovative dosing and controlling equipment with related expert support.
Experienced on-site specialists to assist with start-up, commissioning, troubleshooting, operating, maintenance & repair services.
Rental assets to support and assist your site operations for temporary and longer-term water treatment needs 24/7.

FAQ about water solutions for pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies

Do pharmaceutical water systems require special treatments?

Companies supplying water treatment equipment must ensure that their products are able to produce the quality of water required for the production application as specified by the applicable pharmacopeia., that the technologies employed are authorized for use under the applicable pharmacopeia and that the equipment is manufactured and may then be maintained in compliance with cGMP guidelines. The latter requires proof, which is supplied in the form of various "validation" documents.