Corning Incorporated has introduced Corning Velocity® Vials, specially engineered Type I borosilicate vials externally coated with the company’s proprietary technology, which are helping industry-leading drug makers respond to the pandemic at speed. The increased efficiency and throughput enabled by Velocity Vials can drive faster manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines, helping address industry supply chain challenges and meet global demand.
Velocity Vials can deliver better economics, better quality, and a more environmentally sustainable design compared with traditional borosilicate packaging. Velocity Vials’ protective uniform coating can improve filling line efficiency by 20 to 50 percent while lowering pharmaceutical production costs and providing a streamlined regulatory process for post-market drugs. Compared with conventional vials, Velocity Vials can also reduce damage that leads to particles, breaks, and cracks.
Catalent, Inc. – a global manufacturing partner to leading drug makers – supports many of the highest profile COVID-19 vaccine programs and is on track to deliver more than 1 billion doses in 2021. The company recently implemented Velocity Vials in some of its fill-finish lines in Bloomington, Indiana.
“Ensuring consistent production, high quality, and less downtime is essential as we work to keep pharmaceutical supply chains moving, and to this extent, Corning’s Velocity Vials have already shown very promising results,” said Denis Johnson, vice president and general manager of Catalent’s premier drug product manufacturing facility in Bloomington. “Corning’s Velocity Vials demonstrated a significant improvement in efficiency when compared with traditional borosilicate vials on our fill-finish lines.”
Velocity Vials join Corning Valor® Glass vials and pharmaceutical glass tubing as the company’s newest innovation as Corning builds a comprehensive, end-to-end pharmaceutical packaging portfolio. Corning’s products have enabled the delivery of more than 3 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
Valor Glass, introduced in 2017, is a revolutionary aluminosilicate glass vial that continues to support multiple COVID-19 vaccines, playing a significant role in vaccinating patients across the globe. Domestically, Corning continues building on its agreements with the U.S. government to support the accelerated mass vaccination effort critical to ending the pandemic. With the invention of Velocity Vials, the company extends its long-standing leadership role in the life sciences industry and broadens the reach of Corning’s unique capabilities, significantly expanding its addressable market while strengthening the supply chain for the future.
Adding to the strong position in the industry, Corning’s new high-volume pharmaceutical vial manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina, is now operational. The facility will allow the company to produce up to 500 million glass vials per year to improve the domestic supply chain and deliver vital COVID-19 vaccines to the U.S. and abroad.
“Our packaging portfolio and new capacity allow us to expand the vital role we play in supporting critical health care demand globally – both today and tomorrow,” said Brendan Mosher, vice president and general manager, Corning Pharmaceutical Technologies. “We see a future of pharmaceutical manufacturing that has better quality, is more efficient, more sustainable, and has increased capacity for life-saving drugs. Corning now has two leading vial products – Valor Glass and Velocity Vials – giving our customers two innovative technologies to choose from for their different use cases.”
Velocity Vials are the latest example of how Corning is driving transformation across its markets through its leadership in glass and ceramic science and optical physics, as well as through its proprietary manufacturing platforms. For more information about Velocity Vials, visit here.