News & Events  -  the Panel and our Industry at large

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October 2024: Autumn/Fall meeting of the Irradiation Panel to be held 26/27 November at the Lensbury Resort Hotel, Teddington, London, UK.

Come and join us on the banks of the river Thames for Main Panel, Industry Update and Plenary session on Wednesday November 27, preceded by Working Group meetings on Tuesday November 26.  Members should have received an invitation email already but details available from any Panel Officer. 

April 2024: Irradiation Panel form Education and Training Working Group

The Irradiation Panel has for many years had the delivery of educational content in support of career development as one of its key objectives.  To further this objective it announces the creation of a new ‘Education and Training Working Group’ to be Chaired by Emily Rodgers.  This group has already started work on the development of on-line training content as proposed at the two Panel meetings held in 2023.  Panel members are invited to contact Emily via (enquiries@irradiationpanel.org) to get involved with this new working group.  The first task of the new working group is the development of a charter for the on-line training project.  The formation and aims of the new working group will be presented and discussed at the forthcoming AGM on April 24 in London, along with a progress report on the on-line training project. 

April 2024: Next Irradiation Panel meeting will be 24 April, 2024 in London, UK

Advanced notice that the next Irradiation Panel meeting will be on 24 April and will be hosted by the Lensbury Resort Hotel, Teddington, UK close to London Heathrow Airport (venue of our successful anniversary meeting last April).  We plan a meeting of the full Panel, networking and plenary session on April 24.  This will be preceeded with the Irradiation/X-ray working group meeting on 23 April, and the Microbiology working group on 25 April.  A dinner will be organised for the evening of 23 April. Agenda will be circulated to all members as soon as it is available. 

November 2023: Panel welcomes Bayer and Medtronic

The Irradiation Panel is delighted to welcome Bayer and Medtronic to our family of members.

November 2023: Irradiation Panel Meeting hosted by IBA in Louvain la Neuve, Belgium.

The Irradiation Panel met for 2 days on 7/8 November hosted by IBA at their HQ in Belgium with a tour of the 'Beam Factory'.  The 2 days included a plenary session on a variety of radiation sterilisation topics and sessions of the working groups on Irradiation, X-ray and Microbiology.

April 2023: The Irradiation Panel held its 60th Anniversary Meeting at the Lensbury Resort Hotel.

We celebrated our first in-person meeting in 3 years in style with a very fitting turnout of 60 people, a varied and interesting program, and a gala dinner.  We also welcomed 5 new organisations - AstraZeneca, Convatec, Mammotome, MedAccred and Zimmer Biomet to our growing membership.

November 2022: Panel issues open letter to European Medicines Agency to revise EU GMP Annex 12 - Use of ionising radiation in the manufacturer of medicinal products. 

The Annex must be updated to align with current international standards and guidance on radiation sterilization including the adoption of X-ray technology.  The Irradiation Panel volunteers to lead updating Annex 12.  The Panel requests your support in advocating this update.  Open letter can be downloaded below:

 

 

Panel note EMA Annex 12.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [120.0 KB]

  

April 2022: Panel meets on-line and appoints new officers and endorses plan for the future 

The working groups met on April 5 and this day saw the long-established Dosimtery Working Group renamed to the Irradiation Working Group and the leadership of the group handed on from Peter Sharpe (NPL) to Florent Kuntz (Aerial).  At our Annual General Meeting on April 6 we also welcomed back returning member Ionisos to the Panel. The membership endorsed the new Road Map for the Panel future introduced by the Chair Adam Whaites (Cytiva) which incorporates a name change to 'The Irradiation Panel' reflecting the increased use of X-ray for sterilisation. The meeting also saw the appointment of Claire Frogley (Steris/Harwell Dosimeters) as Deputy Chair and Jeremy Brison (IBA) as Secretary, the previous appointees having served out their terms. 

 

November 2021: Panel meets on-line and welcomes 3 new members

On November 2/3 we welcomed new members Corning, Cytive and TRAD. The Microbiology Working Group launched its Sterilisation Dose Audit failure 'Focus Group' and hosted a presentation on rapid micro methods. The Dosimetry Working Group finalised a comprehensive guide on dose mapping, to be published shortly. In the main Panel the new Chair, Adam Whaites, presented the results of a recent membership survey and outlined a 'Road Map' to increase the Panel's relevance and impact.  There were also presentations on the activities of and collaboration with iia and SfSAP, and on parametric release and the Monte Carlo code RayXpert.

April 2021: Panel AGM sees appointment of new Panel Chair

The Annual General Meeting of the Panel was held on-line on 14 April and attended by 40 members.  Adam Whaites of Cytiva was appointed the new Panel chair and April Ambridge of Scapa Healthcare as Treasurer.  The meeting also welcomed Micronclean as new industrial member and Kees Fremery as an individual member.  Presentations were made on sterility standards activity, updates from both iia and SfSAP, and recent joining members from S+N and ITHPP gave introductory presentations on their respective companies. Well attended Working Group meetings were also held on 12/13 April.

November 2020: Panel publishes new guidance document

The Microbiology Working Group has now published a guide on Risk Assessment following Sterilisation Dose Audit failure, in acordance with ISO11137-2 section 10.4.  It is available to all to download from the Guides area of the website.

November 2020: Panel meetings online!

Both the Microbiology and Dosimetry Working Groups met on November 3, followed by the full Panel meeting on Zoom on November 4.  The minutes to all meetings will be circulated and uploaded to the Documents area shortly. The full Panel meeting welcomed two new members to the Panel: Sartorius and MVS Limited.  If you are interested in joining please get in contact!

April 2020: Panel welcomes 3 more members

The Panel is pleased to confirm the involvement of 3 further corporate/industrial members.  These are Framatome, ITHPP Alcen and Smith+Nephew.

April 2020: Panel publishes article on X-ray Sterilization in Medical Device and Diagnostics Industry

The Panel has prepared an article published today in the online industry journal Medical Devices and Diagnostics Industry on it's recently published guidance on adoption of X-ray sterilization technology.  The article also highlights other Panel guidance recently issued on aspects of ISO standards for microbiological methods and sterilization of health care products.  The article is availalbe here: https://www.mddionline.com/adopting-x-ray-sterilization-medical-devices 

November 2019: Panel Meeting at Novotel, Birmingham Airport, UK.  The Panel Working Groups and main Panel met on 5/6 November.  The Working Groups on Microbiology and Dosimetry/X-ray were particularly well attended with 50% more attendees than the April meetings.  New guidance documents on sterility and sterilisation have been completed and will be issued shortly.  The Panel also welcomed new individual members from our third continent, Africa.  These are Stanley Acquah of the RTC in Accra, Ghana and Mohammed Mouhib of the INRA irradiation facility in Tangier, Morocco.

April 2019:  Panel announces results of survey on X-ray technology.  The Panel AGM saw the release of the results of a survey of 13 relevant Panel organisations regarding the need and focus for the new X-ray Working Group.  Results are available in the documents area of the website

April 2019: Panel Annual General Meeting at Bushy house, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, London.  Well attended Working Group meetings on Microbiology and Dosimetry preceeded the AGM which saw the re-appointment of Mario Bernkopf as Chair and John Woolston as Treasurer.  The meeting also welcomed Nelson Labs as a new Panel member.

November 2018: Two guidance documents added to Panel Publications

The Dosimetry Working Group have produced two guidance documents which have now been added to the Panel publications available here.  They are an updated version of the Panel's guide on the use of Statistical Process Control in radiation sterlisation, reflecting terminology changes in ISO 11137 and a detailed comparison of the 2017 and 2006 versions of ISO 11137 Part 3 which provides guidance on dosimetric aspects of radiation sterilisation.

November 2018: Panel Meeting on 7 November at Novotel, Brussels Airport.  The meeting was preceeded on 6 November for the very first time by meetings of all three of the Panel's Working Groups, Dosimetry, Microbiology and X-ray.  All the meetings were well attended and the main Panel welcomed 6 new members, including four Organisations (Etigam, Gammatom, Institute of Isotopes and Scapa Healthcare) as well as two Individual members.  Presentations were also provided by IBA, Etigam and Institute of Isotopes.

September 2018:  Panel Dosimetry Training Course

The latest in our 'hands-on' training courses in dosimetry for radiation processing was held 4-6 September 2018 hosted by Aerial CRT in Strasbourg.  The course received very positive results in participant feedback and the Panel looks forward to offering such training again in the future.

March 2018: Panel Annual General Meeting at Bushy House, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, London.  The AGM was preceeded by meetings of both the Microbiology and Dosimetry Working Groups.  The AGM meeting witnessed the arrival of four new organisations to the Panel, Abbott, Iotron, MEVEX and MSB, as well as Martin Comben as an individual member.  The meeting also saw the appointment of Josef Mittenfdorfer as Deputy Chair and Martin Comben as Secretary.  Presentations from the AGM are available in the Documents area of the website. 

October 2017: Panel provides feedback to EU on Legal Frameword for Food Irradiation

The Panel has responded to a consultation request for feedback on the current legal framework for food irradiation within the European Union.  The feedback submitted is available for download here

September 2017: Panel organises Dose Mapping Workshop to be held 17 October 

The next Panel meeting is on Wednesday 18 October at the Birmingham Airport Novotel, preceded by the Dosimetry Working Group meeting on Tuesday 17 October.  The morning session of the Dosimetry WG will be a workshop on Dose Mapping, starting at 10am, with presentations on gamma, e-beam and X-ray, together with regulatory issues and requirements.  If your organisation is a Panel member and you would like to attend please contact Peter Sharpe (peter.sharpe@npl.co.uk) for more details. 

March 2017: Panel AGM welcomes 4 new members and a new chairman.....

At a well attended Panel AGM on March 15 we welcomed 4 new members (IBA Industrial, JSC Isotope, Nordion/REVIS and Wright Medical).  The meeting also witnessed the transition in chairman from John Harries of Steris AST to Mario Bernkopf of BBF steriXpert.  John Woolston also superseded Adam Whaites as Panel treasurer.  Many thanks to our hosts NPL who provided the sunny meeting venue at Bushy House, Teddington to the west of London as seen in the photograph above.

October 2016: Panel meeting in Birmingham

The Panel meeting on Wednesday October 12 was well attended and included informative presentations by the International Irradiation Association (iia) and Comet ebeam.  The next meeting is scheduled for March 2017 at NPL.

August 2016: iia and the Panel meet

The Panel and the International Irradiation Associate (iia) recently met to discuss areas of potential cooperation under the Affiliate Agreement signed in January this year.  It is recognised that while both organisations work to promote best practice in radiation processing they wish to remain independent and have different areas of strength.  The Panel has productive Working Groups, a strong role in developing, reforming and implementing standards and holds regular member meetings.  The iia has international reach, effective communication with the irradiation industries and has forged relationships with multiple regulatory, regional and industry specific organisations.  It has been agreed that the iia will assist the Panel with promotion of its activities to the wider irradiation community including publication of the output from Panel Working Groups on the iia website.  A representative of the iia will attend future Panel meetings to provide an update on current iia activities and to be available to discuss and learn more of relevant industry issues.  There is also a desire from both sides to develop joint activities and to arrange joint meetings to address wider industry issues where working together can maximise impact.

June 2016: Aerial and IBA announce new irradiation development centre - electron beam and X-ray

Official press release on 13 June regarding a cooperation between Aerial and IBA to build a unique radiation centre for the development, test and training cente for irradiation processes using 10MeV electron beam and 5/7MeV X-ray based on IBA Rhodotron technology.  The Centre will be known as FEERIX.  Full Press Release is available here: IBA Press Release

May 2016:  Successful Panel training course in radiation dosimetry (24-26 May, Strasbourg)

Aerial hosted a training course in Practical Dosimetry for Radiation Processing organised by the Panel and delivered by Panel members from Riso, NPL and Aerial. Participant Katja Follner of Beta Gamma Service commented 'I learned about the types of dosimeters and systems in use and how they are calibrated. There were also sessions on process definition, validation and control which relate to the standard ISO 11137. The training involved hands-on practical sessions as well as theory. I particularly enjoyed the practical session on calibration and the stimulating exchange with other participants.  I would recommend this course to anyone who needs to learn more about dosimetry in radiation processing'. 

March 2016:  Panel AGM held at NPL, Teddington, UK

The Panel on Gamma and Electron Irradiation held its Annual General Meeting on 16 March 2016 at Bushy House, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington UK.  It was attended by a good cross-section of the membership and was preceeded by a meeting of the Dosimetry Working Group the previous day.

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