Pharmacia & Upjohn automates syringe insertion, speeds production

Food & Drug Packaging, April, 2000 by William Makely

Sometimes the products that require the gentlest care are the most difficult to handle. Witness the Pharmacia & Upjohn production line in Stockholm, Sweden, that packages needles with pre-filled syringes.

The difficulty is not the sharpness of the needles, whose tips are covered, but their light weight and small size. The product is Genotropin, a new medication introduced in Sweden in 1999 and used to treat Growth Hormone Deficiency (GHD) in children. The medication must be injected daily by the patient, and Pharmacia & Upjohn developed the pre-filled disposable syringe that can be conveniently stored at room temperature.

When the line was first opened in 1999, the products were packaged by much the same system used now, but with manual insertion of each syringe and needles into a bag, which were then automatically sealed. Production was slower than the pharmaceutical manufacturer had anticipated, so the company put together a better solution.

Simple Bagging Concept

The bagging system was one developed and manufactured by Pronova AB of Sweden, and uses a simple concept that works for bags from the size required by Pharmacia & Upjohn's syringes up to 10 kilogram bags for products, such as powders and bulk products like birdseed or pet food.

The preformed bags are linked in a continuous chain by their top edges. Those edges have been turned over and formed into tubes during the bag-making process. The tubes ride along two rails, and as the line pulls the chain of bags along, the position of the rails opens the bags for filling, then closes them for sealing. During sealing, the waste top material is cut off.

Currently, syringes arrive at the SIPS station from their filling operation and are fed into seven vertical tubes from which they are dropped into the passing bags, filling up to seven bags at a time. Needles are supplied by a vibratory feeder and are fed into the bags as they move from the SIPS unit to the Pronova Joker 315V bag sealer.

After being sealed and separated from the chain of material, the bags are grouped, then dropped onto a conveyor for delivery downstream to cartoning.

Cecilia Marseth, project manager at Pharmacia & Upjohn, explains how pleased they are. "Pronova helped us solve a downfeeding problem for these difficult products, and gave us a good looking package as well."

Though the bag system can handle either polypropylene or polyethylene film bags, Pharmacia & Upjohn is using linked bags of 0.050 mm unoriented polypropylene supplied by Schur Flexible A/S of Denmark, one of the companies licensed by Pronova to produce the patented bags. The bags are printed before forming, and are perforated for easy opening by the patient.

For information from Pronova AB, send e-mail to sales@pronovaab.se, call (011) 46-35-171900 or mark Item 581. For information from Schur Flexible A/S, send e-mail to sps@schur.com, call (011) 45-763-232-32 or mark Item 582.

HAIR YE, HAIR YE The correct name of the bottle manufacturer in the article "New label helps hair care marketer complete velvety-feel package" on page D2 in our February 2000 issue is Owens-Brockway Plastic Products (call (419) 247-8627 or mark Item 719). Also, these bottles were supplied by container distributor Arroyo Packaging (call (714) 632-7117 or mark Item 720).