Visitors will have a chance to see Romaco’s new Macofar Oftalmica aseptic liquid filling and closing machine for sterile ophthalmic products at the CPHI & PMEC India trade fair. The pharmaceutical machinery manufacturer will also show the STF 120 rigid tube filler from Romaco Siebler for the primary packaging of effervescent and vitamin tablets.
Romaco, a Germany-based supplier of processing and packaging equipment specializing in engineering technologies for pharmaceutical products, says it is committed to more sustainability in the pharmaceutical industry through its various technologies. All its machines can, therefore, be supplied in a carbon-neutral version and ship with an energy monitor for detecting CO2 emissions during production.
The group has a broad portfolio of both standalone machines and integrated lines from powder processing to the final packaging solution. Romaco will take advantage of CPHI & PMEC India to demonstrate selected technologies for aseptic liquid filling and primary packaging in rigid tubes.
Oftalmica aseptic liquid filling machine
The Romaco Macofar Oftalmica was specially developed for filling additive-free ophthalmic products but can also handle nasal sprays and injectables. The technology meets all the requirements of the revised Annex 1 of the EU GMP Guidelines. The machine is ideal for filling sterile, highly viscous, oily and foaming liquids into narrow-mouth bottles. Its dosing station with up to eight separately driven rotary piston pumps enables filling in two phases, which is especially recommended for products with very poor flow properties.
All in all, the Oftalmica achieves a maximum output of 12,000 bottles per hour with a filling volume of between 1 and 30 ml. To simplify product changes, the formats of the individual machine stations and the bottle transport system were designed for a very wide range of container sizes. All parts support plug & play removal and installation in a few simple steps and can also be sterilized in an autoclave.
Vacuum belt conveyors ensure the safe transfer of lightweight plastic bottles. The Oftalmica can be configured with up to three closing stations and will process any standard closure system. Additionally, systems can be implemented to allow one hundred percent weight control and inertisation of the bottles both before and after filling. On request, the technology is offered as a turnkey solution with upstream machines and also downstream equipment for cartoning and case packing.
STF 120 rigid tube filling machine
Romaco Siebler’s fully automatic STF 120 rigid tube filling machine is a user-friendly solution for packing effervescent and vitamin tablets in plastic or aluminum tubes. The tablets to be packed pass through fast-rotating filling tubes, causing them to be erected and slide into the waiting tubes without any mechanical action. Even very small, thin, or soft tablets from as little as 16 mm in diameter, from 4 mm thick, and with hardness down to 40 N can be packed very carefully in this way.
Furthermore, several pick & place systems ensure highly controlled feeding and filling as well as tube closing and discharge processes. This enables the safe handling of very short tubes with lengths down to 70 mm. With a feed rate of up to 100,000 tablets per hour, the Romaco Siebler STF 120 achieves a maximum output of 120 rigid tubes per minute. The fact that only very few compact format parts are necessary, coupled with the ability to adjust both the filling volume and the tube length independently of specific formats, means the changeover time to other tablets is significantly shorter.
Reproducible parameters, seamless process monitoring, and various dust extraction devices add up to outstanding quality when fragile effervescent tablets have to be packed into tubes. The technology can moreover be configured as a complete, powder-to-pallet Romaco line – from the tablet press and breakage-free transfer to the rigid tube filler all the way to the downstream cartoners, case packers, and palletizers.
The CPHI & PMEC India 2022 will be held from 29 November to 1 December 2022 at the India Expo Centre, Greater Noida. Romaco will be present at Stand 10.C03).
