Packing 'em in

With some 200 packaging machinery companies in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, the area can certainly lay claim to the title 'packaging valley'. We take a first-hand look at the region, which claims to have the highest concentration of packaging machine builders in the world

Guido Corbello, the managing director of trade show organiser Ipack-ima, expects 10,000 visitors to visit the first Pharmintech 2004 show aimed at the pharmaceutical and parapharmaceutical (nutraceuticals and food supplements) sectors, to be held in Bologna on June 8-11. To promote the show, which 'has been designed as a an international event for the many foreign visitors we expect', the Italian Association of Automatic Packing and Packaging Machinery Manufacturers (UCIMA), the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade (ICE) and Ipack-ima invited journalists to visit 'packaging valley' - a region in Northern Italy that is home to more than 200 packaging machinery companies - to see how Italian influence extends across the pharmaceutical industry.

The Italian pharmaceutical industry is the world's sixth largest with sales that account for about 3.5% of the global total.

Its active pharmaceutical ingredients sales account for US$2.7bn of a $23bn worldwide market; the majority of sales, in terms of value, go to the US, although in percentage terms Western Europe is the largest market, see figure 1. About 90% of the APIs produced are exported.

Until 2000, Italy was the only major European country to have a trade deficit in the pharmaceutical sector, but this has changed over the last few years. The country's distinctive structural characteristics, world-class competitive strength, flexible approach and collaborative initiatives, such as those demonstrated by Bracco in its work in the field of imaging, have combined to produce a strong performance.

A major strength of the industry rests in its small and medium sized (SMEs) manufacturers: many of the companies are still family owned. In 2001, SMEs did €1.5bn worth of business with the pharmaceutical industry while services totalled €4.3bn. Indicators suggest that the combined figure could be as high as €8bn.

varied manufacturing

In the pharmaceutical packaging markets, figures 2 and 3, Italy enjoys considerable success, exporting some 60-80% of all machines produced in the country. Italy also sells $32.8m worth of equipment into the expanding Chinese market, which is second only to the US in importing pharmaceutical packaging machinery.¹

Italy's varied manufacturing base means that specialist companies that excel in applied research and innovation are thriving there. Many of the highest specified machines originating in Italy are made by companies such as IMA and MG2 - Italian machinery manufacturers generally enjoy an excellent reputation for flexibility and quality.

However, there has been criticism, especially of successive Italian governments who have been seem as slow to respond with investment, especially in research and development.

Romano Prodi, the EU's president, and a former Italian Prime Minister, said: 'Governments need to appreciate what having a pharmaceutical industry, in the widest sense, including medicines and university research, really means.

'The Italian government hasn't had a clear vision of this sector, or how it could and should develop. We would benefit from having a stronger culture of supporting investment, as they have in Spain, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.'²