Egypt, the new frontier of the Extraordinary

Marchesini Group technologies break new ground. We are delighted to announce that one of our assembly and packaging lines for pre-filled syringes and cartridges has been shipped to Africa, to Egyptian customer MUP – Medical Union Pharmaceuticals.

North Africa is not a new market for us, but this time the scale of the order we received is new, requiring a high level of synergy between five of the brands that make up our galaxy.

The packaging cycle starts with the NextraN10, responsible for de-nesting syringes, followed by the Combi 2PL, tasked with assembling and labelling them. Both of these solutions are produced by Corima Division, which this year supported big pharma with the development of lines for packaging Covid-19 vaccines. Combi – one of the best solutions on the market for syringe assembly and Safety Devices application – features two separate on-board infeeds in this case: one for the syringes and the other for the cartridges.

A Robomaster – the result of R&D that has enabled us to build all our robots along the packaging lines in house – handles the two products and places them along a standard non-contact belt that conveys syringes and cartridges – both lying flat – to the Unica 220. This monobloc – a timeless machine produced in the Blister & Farcon factories in Carpi – handles thermoforming: the syringes and cartridges are placed in a thermoformed tray, which is then cartoned by the section of the Unica 220 dedicated to cartoning.

BL-A309, an automatic labelling machine from the Neri Division, labels and serialises the carton. The ability to install all the main traceability devices available on the market – such as Laser or Ink-Jet printers – makes the BLA-309 a complete, easy-to-use and versatile solution that can meet any kind of production requirement related to pharmaceutical traceability.

The MUP line is completed by the Bestpocket case packer, a great end-of-line classic designed by Marchesini Group.

MUP is one of Egypt’s leading pharmaceutical companies. It has a portfolio of over 188 molecules that each year are used in millions of tablets, capsules, sachets, drops and sprays of sterile and non-sterile products containing medicines, creams, ointments and syrups. Four production plants and 2,000 employees allow MUP to operate in over 30 countries on three continents.

The five key points of the project:

• Size: the MUP line is, to date, one of our main projects in Egypt, both in terms of size (the line measures approximately 25 linear metres) and flexibility: this solution can alternately handle two different formats: syringes and cartridges;
• Customisation: the line has been customised so that the syringes – a very delicate product, usually suspended when handled – were laid on a special conveyor belt, as with the cartridges;
• On-board robotics: by using robotics, Unica 220 can also handle ampoules and bottles, as well as other products such as tubes, dispensers and a combination of products in thermoformed trays. The infeed systems can be customised according to the customer’s needs and a Z (Zero Cross Waste) version is also available to reduce waste;
• Serialization: the uniqueness of the MUP line lies not only in the trio of machines, robots and cameras, but also in the installation of advanced on-board software. To this end, MUP asked our strategic partner SEA Vision, a company that specialises in the development of vision and traceability systems, for a complete package including systems for product inspection on all machines and serialisation and aggregation systems. Additionally, SEA Vision provided a site server that can exchange data with the customer’s ERP and transfer track and trace production data to the level 4 repository selected by MUP;
• Delivery: the MUP line was tested using the FAT process via streaming, launched in 2020 to ensure that customers could remotely test it without having to physically visit the company. This procedure ensured that safety was maintained during the most critical stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.