Gerresheimer will present a number of impressive highlight products at this year’s Pharmapack, 10-11 February, in Paris.
One of these is Biopack, the first eco-friendly containers for pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications.
“By using biomaterials our customers contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, thereby protecting the environment and avoiding unnecessary waste. Biomaterials are the renewable alternative to conventional PE/PET,” said Niels Düring, Global Executive Vice President Plastic Packaging. Sugarcane is one of the substances used to make biomaterials. It produces a material with exactly the same characteristics as conventional plastics which is also fully recyclable.
Duma Combi is the first Gerresheimer tablet packaging with a separate compartment for the patient information leaflet. It increases the available space on the outside surface for attractive branding because the leaflet in the compartment contains the information that would otherwise be printed on the pack. The container’s rectangular design also makes space-saving packing for transportation possible.
Ready-to-fill syringes are becoming increasingly popular as primary packaging and as drug delivery devices. However, a number of pharmaceutical drugs are associated with extremely stringent requirements of their packaging systems. Gerresheimer offers a range of options for the reduction or elimination of tungsten residue. For example, pins made of alternative materials that do not leave tungsten or other metal residue behind in the bore can be used for cone forming. Another way to reduce tungsten residue is to put conventionally manufactured syringes into a washing machine as an additional cleaning step after glass molding. A third option is the use of Cyclic Olefin Polymer (COP) as the syringe material.
Gerresheimer’s Medical Systems Division pools the company’s glass and plastics expertise. The advantages of this are evident in an optimization project implemented by the Plastics Technical Competence Center in Wackersdorf and the Center of Excellence for Syringes in Bünde.
Bünde uses injection-molded plastic nests as packaging for ready-to-fill syringes. In the past, these nests tended to buckle as a result of their complex geometry. The Wackersdorf-based mold and plastics specialists at Gerresheimer Regensburg GmbH soon realized that the key to optimizing the molds was to improve the temperature control system. A collaborative project involving the two plants delivered a solution that improved product quality and efficiency while reducing costs – a method for the conformal parallel cooling of the molds which is so innovative that a patent has been applied for.
The GMP-compliant optimization and standardization of Gerresheimer’s handling equipment shows the efficiency improvements that can be achieved in automation systems with the Medical Systems team’s know-how. Our recently developed second-generation pick and place robot can be used in conjunction with any injection molding machine simplifying operation and maintenance at the production plant. The arrangement of the components has also been standardized.
Alongside the two major product innovations, Gerresheimer will have its well-known and very successful glass and plastic syringes, molded and tubular glass products for diverse pharmaceutical applications, as well as insulin pens and inhalers on show at the stand.
Gerresheimer will be at Stand 801 & 802 in Hall 5.2, near the main entrance.