Schott, a supplier of primary pharmaceutical packaging, is investing another single-digit million-euro amount into Canadian big data firm Smart Skin as part of its second financing round. Smart Skin offers a monitoring system to help pharma companies identify weak spots on their production lines, enabling optimisation and cost saving. The Smart Skin system is part of a package Schott offers, designed to improve productivity and increase yield.
Smart Skin offers analysis of filling and packaging lines, providing pressure management to reduce glass breakage, bruising and micro fractures and optimising performance, the company says.
The system uses packaging drones that mimic the shape of vials, syringes, or cartridges. They are equipped with hundreds of sensors. As they traverse the filling line with pharmaceutical containers, they measure where they encounter adverse forces, including pressure, spin, tilt and shock. Real-time analysis is included to help the pharma companies adjust the filling lines to increase their performance and efficiency while reducing wastage.
“Working closely with Schott has helped us gain deeper insights into pharmaceutical glass packaging,” said Evan Justason, CEO of Smart Skin Technologies. “This has enabled us to support pharmaceutical companies with an even better basis to minimise the downtime in production and optimise the yield.”
Fabian Stöcker, VP Global Strategy & Innovation for Schott’s pharma business, added: “Our close cooperation with Smart Skin has been an important enhancement to our portfolio for a number of years. The solution is a powerful lever for our customers to boost productivity. We are more than happy to increase our share with Smart Skin.”
To tackle the challenges that occur on fill & finish lines, Schott also offers mechanical strength testing to identify the root cause of glass breakage. Its portfolio features vials with improved geometry to better withstand pressure, as well as vials with an outer coating that reduces friction. Pharma companies can also combine these features to meet the needs of their individual production setup.
