New Alliance Supports Ready-to-Use Vials and Cartridges

Stevanato Group, Gerresheimer, and Schott Pharma formed an alliance to pool their resources to educate the life sciences market and promote ready-to-use (RTU) vials and cartridges. Called the Alliance for RTU, the group seeks to share expertise and technical knowledge surrounding “high-quality sterile primary packaging, specifically ready-to-fill vials, and cartridges, highlighting RTU configurations' advantages over conventional bulk packaging.”

The Alliance for RTU first presented publicly at CPHI Milan 2024, held by the Convention on Pharmaceutical Ingredients, in Milan on October 8, 2024. Shortly beforehand, Stevanato issued a press release explaining the alliance and its aims. It touted the product category’s higher quality in the product category and benefits to pharmaceutical brands and their manufacturing operations and outsourcing partners (CMOs, CDMOs). Those benefits are said to streamline processes, increase productivity, reduce (TCO) contamination risks, and ease EU GMP Annex 1 compliance. The products, the company said, minimize the release of glass particles and risks of breakage or rejection while preserving the drug inside throughout its entire life cycle.

Toward an RTU industry standard.

The group notes that the market is driving investment in advanced aseptic filling technologies due to increasing demand for injectable medicines and regulatory pressure to meet safety standards. In turn, the Alliance for RTU aims to create an expert platform open to other industry players to help industry manufacturers learn about the key benefits of RTU processes and products and to better evaluate investments for transitioning to efficient filling systems and meeting their unique needs from clinical applications to widespread commercial use.

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