Merck VMF

Vaccine Manufacturing Facility (VMF-102) Expansion

Merck & Co., Durham, NC

This project demonstrates:

• Quality - BPE Standards
• High Purity Piping Pre-Fabrication
• cGMP Installation
• eTOPS
• Project Controls & Scheduling

The Challenge

Merck & Co. initiated a $100 million expansion project to their existing vaccine manufacturing facility in the Treyburn Corporate Park located in Durham, North Carolina. This expansion now supports the manufacture and global distribution of several of Merck's key vaccines. The expansion consisted of over 115,000 square feet and included a sterile processing facility, formulation equipment, Lyophilization equipment, quality testing labs and a high speed packaging line.

Intermech was selected by Yonkers Industries (Merck's Construction Manager) to be part of a collaborative team effort to work with Parsons (Merck's Engineering Firm) in Charlotte, North Carolina to perform initial design reviews, develop pre-construction budgets, to provide constructability input, fabrication and installation of the new facility's high purity (hygienic) piping systems.

Intermech's Response

Intermech, Inc. completed the successful fabrication and installation of over 6,000 lineal feet of process hygienic piping systems for the VMF-102 project on time and within budget. The fabrication and installation included over 16 hygienic process piping distribution systems for the WFI tanks, Clean Steam Generators, CIP skids, BioWaste skids, Cryo Freezers and Lyophilizer skids. Intermech's scope of work also included the hook-up of over 14 various process piping systems between Pharmadule's modular pre-fabricated production suites.

The Results

The completion of this expansion will further increase Merck's production capacity of MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccines, chicken pox and shingles vaccines. Intermech's scope of work performed had a contract valuation of over $3.5 million and was executed from July of 2008 through May of 2009 in compliance with strict contract delivery deadlines and rigorous project quality requirements. The work was fabricated and managed from Intermech's McLeansville, NC Operations Center. Partially as a result of the superior performance on the VMF-102 Project, Intermech has continued to receive additional major contract work at other Merck & Co. facilities.