Gerresheimer Medical Systems is expanding its Technical Competence Center (TCC) at its Wackersdorf, Germany location. The company said the multi-million dollar investment will create 3,000 square meters of additional space for the development and industrialization of glass products, such as syringes and carpules.

Gerresheimer AG offers both plastic and glass pharmaceutical and medical technology products in its medical systems business unit. The goal of the expansion is to merge its competence for both materials under one roof. The TCC in Wackersdorf was previously responsible for the development and industrialization of plastic products only. Innovative glass products, such as pre-fillable syringes and cartridges, will now also be prepared for series production at the site moving forward.

One focus of the expansion is the establishment of small batch production for pre-fillable glass syringes and cartridges. Here it is possible to produce pre-series modules from glass forming to ready-to-ship, washed, and siliconized ready-to-fill systems. The focus is on syringes and cartridges for especially sophisticated, biotechnologically manufactured medication, clinical samples for approval, or prototypes for process and technology development. At the same time, glass competence is also being established in the automation systems area-special machine engineering-in order to develop innovative technologies for glass forming and automation. New generations of glass forming lines for syringe production will in the future originate in a cooperation between the Bünde and Wackersdorf locations.

“In addition to the expansion of the technology portfolio, the expansion of small batch production and automation systems in Wackersdorf, we should also focus on large batch production at our location in Bünde, which previously had to be interrupted at considerable expense and effort for development projects and start-ups for new products,” said Manfred Baumann, global executive vice president, sales and marketing, administration and TCC, management board, Gerresheimer Regensburg GmbH.