Cleanroom production for pharmaceutical packaging

What all eye drops used to share was an unavoidable contact with bacteria after opening. The common systems on the market are therefore often single applicators. A sustainable alternative to pharmaceutical packaging is manufactured by Aptar Radolfzell GmbH in a clean room: a multiple dosage system. As a closed system, this offers the necessary protection against microbiological contamination, which reliably prevents the premature deterioration of the drug. "Our applicator delivers the medicine drop by drop and is free of preservatives. That is the added value of the system," Ingo Korherr, production manager at Aptar Pharma, sums it up. One advantage here is that it is not a one-time application, which is not ecological and produces a lot of waste," adds Ralf Fichtner, site manager of Aptar Pharma in Eigeltingen in southern Germany.

The OSD (Ophthalmic Squeeze Dispenser) consists of seven plastic parts. For the production of the applicator and the spray pins, investment was made in two new ENGEL production cells for the Eigeltingen site, the second production site of Aptar Radolfzell GmbH in addition to Radolfzell.

• The applicator is produced from polypropylene (PP) in a 32-cavity mould on an ENGEL e-victory 740/220 injection moulding machine.

• The total shot weight is 30.5 grams. An ENGEL e-victory 50/90 produces the spray pin from TPE in a 16-cavity mould with a total shot weight of 1.97 grams.

• Both components are product-carrying. Against the background of microbiological purity, both production cells for the pharmaceutical packaging parts are encapsulated as a class ISO 7 clean room.

The e-victory injection moulding machines with electric injection unit and servo-hydraulic clamping unit offer advantages - both for the detailed pharmaceutical injection moulded parts produced in the clean room and the multi-cavity moulds. The reason is the tie-bar-less clamping unit. This provides sufficient space for large multi-cavity moulds even on machines with low clamping forces. The excellent parallelism of the mould fixing platens is also maintained during clamping force build-up and injection. The patented Force Divider distributes the clamping force evenly over the mould fixing platens. This ensures consistently high moulding precision across all cavities. These were the factors that tipped the scales in Aptar's favour when it came to investing in machines from this series. "The ENGEL servo-hydraulic clamping unit runs like clockwork," says Andreas Gräber, Manager Injection Moulding Services at Aptar Pharma.

The production process for pharmaceutical packaging in the clean room is fully automated. The components are removed by ENGEL easix robots. One of the decisive factors for the use of jointed-arm robots was the limited space available in production. The fact that the ENGEL robot control unit is integrated into the CC300 control unit of the injection moulding machines makes it particularly easy for Aptar to use jointed-arm robots. The integrated production cell offers a uniform operating logic.

Choosing partners with expertise is elementary for Aptar Pharma. "ENGEL listened and implemented our requirements and wishes. ENGEL's innovative strength struck the right chord with us," says Ralf Fichtner and announces the next joint step: Digitalisation. "We are already well on the way here." The ENGEL customer portal e-connect is the first step. Andreas Gräber, who has been with Aptar for 30 years, uses this tool intensively. "e-connect is really running great. I use the platform for machine management and have the complete plant documentation at a glance."