Case Study: Marchesini Group for Catalent Pharma Solutions: Efficient Syringe Packaging
By: Marchesini Group S.p.A.
To meet the requirements of efficiency and flexibility for packaging pharmaceuticals that are rather difficult to process is a challenge that the American pharmaceutical group Catalent Pharma Solutions has won alongside Marchesini Group.
The role leader is a machine that fills syringes with viscous products, produced by Marchesini for the French site of Limoges of Catalent Group and that has provided winning solutions for the specific packaging needs of complex pharmaceuticals for a wide array of sectors such as dentistry applications, cosmetic surgery, ophthalmology and dermatology.
Catalent: experience and proficiency focused on health
The American group, Catalent Pharma Solutions, a contract packer enterprise, specializes in the production and packaging of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics and employs 15 thousand staff members in 27 sites worldwide. The Limoges site in France employing 250 people focuses on the production and packaging of injectables in syringes and sacks in a sterile environment and not only works with the top ten international pharmaceutical laboratories but also with small and medium sized pharma companies.
To process these products, Catalent works with top level partners among which Marchesini Group. It was in 2001 when Marchesini supplied the first syringe packaging line, featuring a robotic feeder able to guarantee high flexibility, which is crucial in this industry.
Catalent and Marchesini: a proficient partnership and winning packaging solutions
One of the latest supplies of Marchesini to Catalent's site in Limoges is a machine for filling syringes with liquid and viscous products for sectors of dentistry applications, cosmetic surgery, ophthalmology and dermatology.
This machine is the outcome of a close and mutually profitable partnership between Catalent Limoges and the Tonazzi – Vasquali division of Marchesini Group and it features technological solutions that provide substantial solutions for products that are rather difficult to process.
The filler "Millennium120" has, for the first time, been supplied in a "special version" to fill glass syringes, with volumes from 0.5 to 100 ml., for liquids and gels. In detail, the machine is equipped with a stoppering system that completely eliminates any air left between the product and the stopper. The typical balcony-design structure and the oval shape of the machine guarantee better access to the inside, clearly separating the mechanical drives from the filling area as well as simplifying the use of typical protection systems (laminar flow): all these specifications do indeed meet the "clean concept" requirements of this industry. The syringes are loaded semi-automatically and a Pick & Place system loads the empty syringes in the relative puck.
The filling unit, which utilizes three brushless tracking motors, dispenses the exact amount of product and ensures maximum precision for liquids but also for viscous solutions, which are unusual for this type of packaging system. The machine is equipped with a station that ejects non-compliant syringes and a pair of gloves on the front protection panels so that operators can intervene without having to open them.
"We are greatly satisfied with our business partnership with Marchesini Group – said Patrice Daude, Engineering Catalent – and this machine has provided an important solution to our production and processing requirements of a delicate product in a sterile environment. We work with Marchesini and will continue to do so to achieve new projects".