GSK visit

Went to the GSK site at Jurong yesterday. Nice place, great site for Half-Life: Pharmaceutical Plant.

No cameras or whadever allowed so i guess there muz be some commercial secrets going inside there. Shall not go into details, then. After all, it might become my rice bowl.

The place was in this area of Jurong - you know the "reclaimed land" part of West Side with all those industrial areas, lousy air and uniformed workers. We were given a talk by one of our seniors and it was interesting to know that another person got into pharmacy cos he was surprised how drugs can save lives~.. haha... and all the stuff about if his drug was adulterated or not manufactured properly then. Quite interesting.

The pharmacists we were shown to were quite nice, sharing with us their stories and feelings about the company and the plant. Think the whole visit was quite interesting and heartwarming.
Then we went on a group tour. Can't reveal much but this plant appears to manufacture the powders, i.e. from the raw materials such as alcohol, etc to the drug powder that pharmacists use to make into the various dosage forms. Very interesting. It also means that most of the stuff the guide (which we suspected was a chemical engineer) was saying didn't make much sense to us, although with our limited knowledge of Dosage Form Design we barely managed to grasp some of it.

Gigantic mixers and a hell lotta pipes, valves with all the labels dangled from here and there, creating a vastly complex network. Just imagine what reactions would be going on in these pipes. Reminded me of the time i played Half-life, where objective was to turn valves, activate panels, balance along pipes, get flushed down huge reaction vessels, drains, sewers, etc. So fun!
Except that it doesn't have monsters, aliens or headcrabs, no shotguns, mp5s, rocket launchers, etc. A really nice place, really.