Gerresheimer, a leading global provider of healthcare & beauty and drug delivery  systems for pharma, biotech and cosmetics, and Stevanato Group (NYSE: STVN), a global provider of drug containment, drug delivery and diagnostic solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences industries, announce that they have jointly developed a high-end ready-to-use (RTU) solution platform with an initial focus on vials, based on Stevanato Group’s market-leading EZ-fill® technology. This collaboration is projected to help customers gain efficiencies, improve the quality standard, increase speed to market, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and help  mitigate supply chain risk.

Gerresheimer and Stevanato Group are addressing rising demand for RTU vials in the market and the partnership serves as a market enabler to fully support customers’ evolving needs and establish a gold standard in the industrial filling process. The collaboration aims to make RTU vials a standard, available to a wide number of pharma companies globally – offering premium quality solutions to patients and reducing complexity for pharma operations. The new solution will be available to other players in the market to standardise fill-finish operations from early phase drug development to commercialisation.

The new RTU solution platform from Gerresheimer and Stevanato Group will share the same secondary packaging, production process and sterilisation method, ensuring consistent available capacity and a reliable double sourcing to the pharmaceutical industry. A hallmark of the new RTU platform is a significant reduction in particles, improving the overall quality and performance of the RTU solutions. In addition, customers can count on a high-end solution made by two major players in the drug containment industry with a long history of innovation. The new jointly developed vial platform and trademark will be presented in detail to the market at the CPhI Worldwide Frankfurt in November 2022.

“The new developed RTU platform stands out in terms of quality, TCO and sustainability and takes the use of RTU solutions like vials and, in the future, cartridges to a new level,” said Dr Lukas Burkhardt, Member of the Management Board of Gerresheimer. “Due to the strong reduction of the particle load, the quality is significantly increased. Our new innovative solution will convince the market to significantly accelerate the conversion from bulk to RTU Vials.”

“Our EZ-fill vial platform is the market’s most established choice for pre-sterilised containers, and this enhanced version for RTU vials will bring to the market its full potential in terms of quality, flexibility and value for Pharmaceutical Companies and CMOs”, said Mauro Stocchi, Chief Business Officer at Stevanato Group. “Through our collaboration with Gerresheimer, we are responding to market demand, and we expect to achieve another important milestone in creating a reliable ecosystem to support, accelerate and de-risk the conversion from bulk to EZ-fill vials already underway in the market.”