By breaking ground, the speciality glass manufacturer SCHOTT has given the starting signal for the construction of a new production facility for sterile pharmaceutical primary packaging made of polymer at its Müllheim site in Germany. The state-of-the-art plant is to be built by 2022 with an investment volume in the three-digit million euro range and will then offer 100 additional jobs.

“The construction of this new production facility represents an enormous reinforcement of our site here in Müllheim. In addition to pharmaceutical glass vials, we will now have sterile, prefillable polymer containers and here in particular syringes, as a second pillar,” explained Site Manager Bernhard Langner.

The new plant will be built on the existing plant grounds on an area of 11,000m². Besides the production building that will be equipped with the latest cleanroom technology, the new building project also includes a pilot centre for developing innovations, a logistics centre and an integrated administrative area.

“The city of Müllheim warmly welcomes SCHOTT’s expansion, which will further strengthen our prospering business location between Basel and Freiburg. We are particularly pleased about the high level of investment, the significant increase in jobs and the fact that SCHOTT is so clearly committed to our city,” said Martin Löffler, the Mayor of Müllheim.

With currently 280 employees, Müllheim is the only plant the SCHOTT Pharmaceutical Systems Business Unit has in Germany. It is part of a global network of 18 production sites in 13 countries.

“After we just significantly expanded capacity by adding new production lines at our competence centre for polymer syringes in St. Gallen and recently completed the installation of the new lines there, the construction of the new plant in Müllheim represents another important step in the strategic expansion of our polymer business,” explained Mario Haas, Head of the Polymer Solutions division.

The new production facility will meet the highest standards. The entire process, from injection moulding and quality control to sterile packaging, will be automated and digitally connected in a state-of-the-art cleanroom environment.

“By also using the principle of machine learning and artificial intelligence in inspection technology, we can use the data we have collected to optimize process parameters,” added Andreas Reisse, Head of the Pharmaceutical Systems Business Unit.

Prefillable polymer syringes are used for highly viscous drugs, emergency medication and intensive care medicine, among other applications.

SCHOTT is one of the world’s leading suppliers of pharmaceutical packaging made of glass and polymer. Every year, the company manufactures around 11 billion syringes, vials, ampoules and cartridges. This, in turn, means that, in purely mathematical terms, every person in the world comes into contact with pharmaceutical packaging from SCHOTT 1.5 times a year.