BGS Beta-Gamma-Service installs E-Beam accelerator in US facility

BGS Beta-Gamma-Service, a leader for more than 40 years in the use of beta and gamma rays for radiation sterilization of medical devices, pharmaceutical packaging, and biotechnology products, has brought its first U.S. facility, BGS US LLC, closer to completion with the recent installation of a high-power E-Beam accelerator. The state-of-the-art unit features precision beam current, higher sustainability, and utmost reliability, enabling precise dosing at high throughput rates. The 100,000ft² BGS US plant is in Imperial, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh International Airport. It will begin performing fully automated E-Beam sterilization in mid-2025.

“Installation of the accelerator brings us closer to becoming operational,” says Leonard Zuba, general manager, BGS US. “It also demonstrates our team’s ability to work together to achieve goals according to plan. The collaborative approach we used to ensure timely installation of the accelerator is the same one that we will use to serve customers from throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and South.”

One of the main features of the accelerator is that it consumes 30% less energy than other high voltage accelerators when converting electricity into E-Beam power. This makes electron sterilization an efficient, environmentally friendly, and economical sterilization method.

Why use E-Beam sterilization?
For decades, ethylene oxide (EtO) sterilization has been the preferred sterilization method of medical device manufacturers. In recent years, growing awareness of the environmental hazards associated with the technology, along with an increasingly difficult-to-obtain supply of Cobalt-60 for gamma sterilization, have threatened domestic sterilization capacity.

Technologies such as E-Beam sterilization that use concentrated beams of electrons to sterilize products are practical alternatives that can alleviate supply chain bottlenecks. The technologies that BGS US will use in Pittsburgh have proven to be effective at the company’s three sites in Germany. BGS is one of the pioneers in the use of E-Beam technology and operated one of the first E-Beam sterilization facilities of its kind.