Betagro Agro Solutions: an alliance for success

Better Pharma production facility

Betagro, a visionary leader in the agriculture industry, now offers solutions and services to help customers achieve business sustainability. Betagro’s core competencies are animal feed, veterinary products, farm equipment and laboratory services.

Better Pharma, Betagro’s veterinary and feed additives business arm, has strengthened product reliability and revved up capacity.

It has also broadened its portfolio of livestock industry biosecurity solutions by adding personal hygiene products such as hand sanitizers, soap and shampoo to complement its existing lines.

Thailand’s first company to become GMP PICs certified in 2013, realizes the necessity of continuously improving product safety by guaranteeing full potency of all products and stability within the expiry date.

Better Pharma highlights rapport with communities. It installs scrubbers to manage chemical dust, odour, vapors and effluent treatment facilities.

In 2017, it completed a 100-million-baht upgrade of its centralized building automation control (BAS) to enhance product safety and raise production capacity. The renovation is strategically aimed at sustaining its leading market position by delivering unrivalled quality products. Also, state-of-the-art heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment has been installed to prevent air-borne impurities from entering all production lines.

An engineer monitors building automation system connecting with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC)

The upgrade included venturi valve installations and sensors to monitor air ow and static pressure to maintain correct room pressurization.

Cleansing production lines

Its production line features high-precision dosing systems, barcode and operation procedures to eliminate human errors due to mix ups and inaccurate weighing. For example, it uses intermediate bulk container (IBC) tanks for mixing specific products, for example, tiamulin where the tank can not be used for producing other products. After finishing each batch, the tanks are thoroughly Reverse osmosis water is extensively used for equipment cleaning. The process removes bacteria, foreign particles, ions and dissolved non-ions. Ozone is dissolved into the water to prevent microbial colonization and bio lm formation. The processed water is then further purified through deionization.

Mixers are installed in sterile and controlled particulate rooms, class 100,000 or ISO Class 8 environment. The mixing room is automated to prevent direct contact between the operators and materials.

For water soluble products, the pharmaceutical compounds are delivered to production stations and mixed via a piping system. The finished products are bottled using automation.

Raw materials are procured from approved vendors who retain records to verify quality consistency.

The materials are tested for compliance before being releasing from quarantine stock. Vendors are required to submit samples. If the samples fail to meet technical requirements at this stage three times, the suppliers are rejected from the vendor list.

The raw materials and finished products are tested using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to validate and quantify if they meet specifications.

Better Pharma’s lab is ISO 17025 accred- ited for amoxicillin, vitamin A, ferrous and heavy metal contaminants and more.

AllBetterPharmaveterinarygoods,pre- mixes, enzymes, acidi ers and other products are tested rigorously.

Better Pharma’s generic veterinary drugs are subject to testing for bioavailablity and bioequivalence to ensure that they are on par with the original products. With this rigorous quality assurance scheme, its pharmaceutical products live up to international expectations. As proof, Better Pharma has exported tilmicosin to Japan for years.

Its veterinary products maintain standards on par with the legal and quality standards specifications of medicines used in Japan, the US and the EU.

Better Pharma’s FAMI-QS certification guarantees that its products are safe and approved for use in broiler production destined for the United Kingdom.

FAMI-QS certification requires that broiler producers use feed additives that are Universal Feed Assurance Scheme (UFAS) accredited.

As a result, feed additives and premixes supplied by Better Pharma are on par with products manufactured in Europe.

All products are subject to quarantine and only released after they are tested and 100% proven to meet quality standards.

For veterinary medicines, vitamin premixes and additives, the company has invested heavily in honing product consistency by adopting the latest dosing, mixing and real-time information and tracking systems.

NEXGEN has broadened its product portfolio and added new solutions to advance biosecurity. It offers a comprehensive range of sanitization and disinfection products customized for the livestock and food and beverage industry.

Better Pharma’s R&D team has developed new disinfectants to meet customer needs. The products have been tested and validated to ensure effective virucidal and bactericidal properties.

All NEXGEN products are developed by a dedicated team of hygiene researchers and industry specialists.

NEXGEN sanitation product lines include cleaning-in-place (CIP) products, foams, sanitizers, multipurpose cleaners, manual cleaning products and food-grade lubricants.

E-traceability makes production data available on a real-time basis. Production and work ow are designed to create a safe workplace. Highly reactive acids and alkalides are stored separately. The work area is spacious and well ventilated.

Raw materials are screened and tested before approval and stored in a warehouse. QR codes are applied for controlling inventory and the addition sequence to leave no room for operator errors. Similar to pharmaceutical products, reverse osmosis and deionized water is used for cleaning.

Deionized water system

The products are mixed in stainless pharmaceutical-grade mixing tanks. Ingredients are dose delivered automatically via pipes, reducing contamination risks resulting from exposure to air, water and operators during the manufacturing process.

Better Pharma now offers glutaraldehyde-based sanitizers, which are compounds commonly used for disinfecting medical equipment in the healthcare industry; as well as twin-chain quaternary ammonium and a combination of glutaraldehyde and twin-chain quaternary ammonium.

Apart from long-lasting microbicidal activity, the company is mindful of the hard water solubility issue in rural areas. As a result, all Better Pharma water soluble products are easily dissolvable even in water with a hardness of up to 400 mg/l.

Better Pharma has developed disinfectant products with long retention times so they can attach to surfaces long enough to kill bacteria and viruses. All of its cleaning and disinfectant products are foamable when used with low-pressure sprayers and washers to ensure adequate contact time.