Antares Vision Group, a technological partner in the digitalisation of products and supply chains for companies and institution, will feature solutions from its broad set of precision inspection and quality control portfolio at Pack Expo 2026, 18-21st October in Chicago.
Antares Vision Group
At Booth W-28068 in the Healthcare Packaging Pavilion, the company’s offering will exemplify its comprehensive capabilities to inspect, control and monitor a wide range of pharmaceutical products and scenarios, including prefilled syringes, blistered oral solid dose products and high-leverage cold chain environments.
All totaled, Antares Vision will showcase more than half a dozen solutions spanning a spectrum of capabilities conducive to smart, seamless quality control and real-time traceability. The solutions showcased at Pack Expo 2026 demonstrate how Antares Vision Group is helping pharmaceutical manufacturers address key industry challenges, including quality assurance, regulatory compliance, digital transformation, operational visibility, and supply chain performance through integrated inspection, traceability, and data-driven technologies.
“Pack Expo provides an important opportunity to demonstrate how inspection, serialisation, traceability and digital technologies are increasingly converging to support safer products, more efficient manufacturing processes, and greater operational visibility across the pharmaceutical value chain,” said Andrew Pietrangelo, president of Antares Vision North America. “Built on decades of leadership in serialisation and end-to-end traceability, our solutions help pharmaceutical manufacturers connect quality, compliance and supply chain data to support smarter and more resilient operations.”
For Antares Vision Group, among the Pack Expo standouts is its new automatic visual inspection and leak detection system for liquids in prefilled syringes (PFS). Powered by proprietary software algorithms and patented technology, the new CY Series achieves exceptional levels of inspection accuracy while maintaining the high speeds necessary for modern pharma manufacturing.
Container closure integrity testing (CCIT) is conducted via integrated high-voltage technology to best ensure that no leak goes overlooked. The CY Series also inspects for proper fill levels, as well as any microcracks, pinholes or other potential defects in PFS components like flanges, needle shields and plungers. The product itself also is thoroughly inspected for a broad range of reflective and non-reflective particles, including fibres, floaters and heavier/settled foreign substances. Upon defect detection, a reject rail allows for streamlined reinspection.
At the show, the system will be paired with Antares Vision Group’s Syringe Labeler ETFS 300, a multifunctional system providing thermal transfer printing and a proprietary camera system for complete print inspection, precision label application and tight-tolerance plunger rod insertion. Among other features, the ETFS-300’s label dispenser is equipped with a servomotor for premium precision, as well as a rejection system that flags syringes with missing plunger rods and/or labels. Combining several critical processes in one compact design, the machine maximises floorspace productivity in increasingly inundated manufacturing environments.
The result of a decadelong partnership between Antares Vision Group and blister machinery specialist IMA Group, the new BFC AI harnesses artificial intelligence to exactingly inspect the entirety of a blister cavity – including the enclosed oral solid dose (OSD) product and headspace. In doing so, the system virtually eliminates the risk of intermingling, stray tablets (vagrants) and excess products. Through its learning functionalities, the unit yields exceptionally accurate quality control, even when operating at or beyond the top throughput speeds of the market’s fastest, most robust blister packaging machinery. By leveraging AI-driven learning capabilities, the BFC AI helps manufacturers reduce false rejects, minimise product waste, improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and maintain consistent quality standards even at the highest production speeds.
Suitable for inspecting any kind of blistered OSD – including tablets, mono- or multicolored capsules, hard and soft gelatins, and products with print or embossing – the BFC AI can be integrated into a wide variety of conventional inspection parameters. These include counting (presence or absence), color correctness, physical dimensions like shape and contour, and blemishes such as cracks, spots or marks. Notably, the system can handle a wide range of blister compositions, including transparent, opaque or colored PVC, ALU-ALU constructions, and sustainability-minded substrates like polypropylene (PP).
The BFC AI can be integrated into a packaging line with various other Antares Vision inspection systems, such as lidding foil inspection, component verification, and date/lot code inspection, as well as the Antares Tracking System for production traceability.
Antares Vision Group will also be highlighting its solutions set for comprehensive cold chain management. The end-to-end solution supports barcode, RFID, and real-time sensor technology for robust integration capability with MES, WMS, and ERP systems.
Recently, a prominent pharma contract packager requested a sophisticated solution for managing temperature-sensitive products during internal processing. Products needed to be maintained at specific temperatures or at ambient temperature for a controlled period before returning to refrigerated or frozen environments. Antares Vision Group delivered a barcode-based solution for cold chain management integrated with real-time dashboards and proactive alert systems. Products are scanned as they move through different temperature zones, such as freezers, refrigerators, or ambient zones. At each line, status dashboards provide immediate visibility into product conditions, while message boards and automated email alerts notify staff when products approach critical temperature or time limits.
The system is built to scale for future requirements: it integrates seamlessly with RFID and real-time sensor technology, reducing manual scanning and expanding automation as operations grow.