ISQ creates special unit for chemical, pharmaceutical and agri-food sectors

Do you know if the water that runs on your faucet meets the standards and is safe? And have the food you buy in the supermarket, for example fresh, been subject to quality control? And how do you guarantee the authenticity of the organic foods you buy at the supermarket? And what is the quality of the air you breathe in the office? Do you know if there are pollutants? And how can we ensure that the drugs we buy have the right composition, at the right doses, and do not contain impurities harmful to your health?  What does a technology hub focused on industry, technology and innovation have to do with Lifescience? All. ISQ has decided to combine the various valences it already has in the chemical, pharmaceutical and agri-food sectors with regard to analyses and trials, and has created a highly specialized unit called FFQ (Chemistry, Pharmaceutical and AgroAlimentar) dedicated to providing analysis services to various sectors of activity. These are areas of activity with a high technological and scientific component, based on the accumulated experience of laboratory activity of the ISQ Group. We are talking about chemical analyses of drinking water and watering for legal compliance assessment for health protection purposes as well as microbiological control analyses. We contribute to the assessment of legal compliance with human, natural and waste water. Always with two approaches: human health and environmental preservation. As regards food safety, the FFQ will control food quality through chemical and microbiological analyses to assess food compliance with a view to promoting consumer safety. In terms of indoor air quality, microbiological analyses are available to assess risks associated with exposure to microorganisms that have a relevant impact on workers' health, such as Legionella, a pathology that originates from inhalation of water droplets containing the bacterium Legionella pneumophila. Legionella can be a public health problem in places such as commercial spaces, hotels, spas, industry and offices. The risk of outbreaks increases with long periods of building inactivity, and can be deadly and infect multiple individuals at the same time. In terms of quality verification of pharmaceuticalproducts, with Infarmed and FDA authorization, the FFQ does physical-chemical quality control of human-use medicines, experimental drugs and active substances. This control also involves dosing analyses, analysis of equivalent substances and content uniformity to pharmaceutical products for conformity assessment, as well as for the assessment of impurities present in the case of nitrosamines (carcinogenic chemical agents for humans). In essence, "the FFQ embraces three business areas: labqui, dedicated to providing harvesting and analysis services mainly in the Environmental and Agricultural scope (primary sector), lab Labiagro, specialized in analysis services for the Agri-Food Industry and QCPharma, dedicated to providing services to the pharmaceutical industry in the scope of quality control. The FFQ aims to be a national and international reference in the analytical services of the different areas where it is present", explains Manuel Lourenço, director of the FFQ. Currently, the FFQ is focused on analytical services, but intends in the near future to extend its scope of action to consulting services in different areas (Environment, Agri-Food and Pharmaceutical).This service will complement the analysis services that claim to be the "core-business" of the FFQ. It should be noted that the ISQ Group has been investing in LifeScience since 2000 (expanding its network of laboratories, currently 16), a sector that has been the target of great scientific and technological advances, constituting itself as an active partner of organizations in this sector, supported by its vast technical and laboratory experience.