Point of interest

The Gerresheimer Bünde facility is continually growing. As well as boasting a new building complex, a fourth production line is being commissioned. With around 800 employees this is Gerresheimer’s Group’s competence centre for ready-to-fill glass syringes

When you seen the new building complex at this Gerresheimer plant, it’s hard to imagine that the company was founded back in 1947 as Bünder Glas by the Hennings and Zimmermann families. Gerresheimer took over Bünder Glas in 1987 and since then it has gradually developed it into an international specialist for sterile ready-to-fill syringes which are marketed under the Gx RTF (Gerresheimer Ready-to-Fill) brand name.

Glass ready-to-fill syringes are supplied to pharma and biotech customers around the world, where they are filled with pharmaceuticals. Gerresheimer has a comprehensive portfolio of sterile and non-sterile syringe systems. Gx RTF syringe systems are supplied to the customer in a ready-to-fill state - washed, siliconised, pre-assembled with cap and sterilised.

The new production bay

The fourth production line for ready-to-fill syringes is currently being commissioned in the new production bay. Key process improvements include the avoidance of glass-glass and glass-metal contact through the use of pick-and-place robots and segment transport systems, optimized washing and siliconisation processes and more effective, camera-based quality inspections. This gentle handling results in a lower syringe cosmetic defect rate. A new washing process guarantees even better compliance with both present-day and future regulatory requirements. Improved spraying technology and 100% in-line inspections in the siliconisation process ensure consistent syringe function. All these measures improve the syringes’ processability during the filling process and their general function. The syringes from all production lines are packed into PP boxes in clean room environments to ensure maximum product hygiene.

The first RTF production line was installed and commissioned at the Bünde plant in 2001. Before long, the RTF syringes were a major success on the international markets.

Two further production lines were subsequently installed, followed by the fourth RTF line in Bünde ten years later. Today syringes account for the majority of Bünde’s production output, and it will have the capacity to manufacture over 400 million RTF syringes when the RTF4 line is put into operation at the end of 2014.