OPTIMA Invests in New Facility and Celebrates 100th Anniversary

At its German headquarters, OPTIMA is investing in a state-of-the-art facility to get integrated pharmaceutical lines into production more safely and quickly.

As part of its 100th anniversary celebration on May 05, 2022, the Optima Group inaugurated the CSPE Center II. The Optima Pharma Division is expanding its production area for assembling, commissioning, and qualifying pharmaceutical filling lines by over 4,000 square meters. Additional new office space has also been created. The first lines were installed just seven months after construction began. Optima Pharma is responding to customer requests and is further expanding the successful CSPE process for fast and safe production start-up of the integrated filling lines with isolators and freeze dryers.

“Celebrating the company’s 100th anniversary provides the perfect backdrop for the inauguration of CSPE Center II,” says Hans Buehler, Managing Director/CEO of the Optima Group. The inauguration of the new building was held during the event which was attended by numerous guests from the world of business and politics.

Baden-Wuerttemberg’s Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann made a special trip to the inauguration and extended his congratulations on Optima’s 100th anniversary. “This investment reaffirms our commitment to the Schwaebisch Hall site and is creating the conditions for continued growth with complete confidence”, says Hans Buehler. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a shortage of materials in the construction industry, the new building was completed in a record time of only twelve months. “We would like to express our thanks and appreciation to our architect Rolf Blank, along with all the companies and authorities involved, for this masterful performance,” Buehler stresses. Installation, commissioning and qualification of equipment was possible after a record time of only seven months, starting in December 2021.

CSPE 2.0: In best time to production start

“CSPE 2.0 enables an even higher level of integration. Work that typically took place on the customer’s site will be carried out to an even greater extent in one of our CSPE centers,” stated Gerhard Breu, Chairman of the Optima Pharma Division.

The Comprehensive Scientific Process Engineering (CSPE) speeds up processes, from designing the system to launching production. An essential aspect is the comprehensive process simulations, along with integrated factory acceptance tests for complete systems. In addition to filling and closing systems, and isolators, freeze-drying systems can now also be set up and tested under realistic conditions, as a fully functioning overall unit. As a comprehensive system provider, Optima Pharma now handles further qualification measures in-house, including significant parts of cycle development. This significantly reduces the time that elapses between installation and the start of production at the customer’s site, as well as a reduction in time from product development to market launch.

Expansion in the pharmaceutical business sector

Optima Pharma inaugurated the first CSPE Center in June 2019 at its headquarters in Schwaebisch Hall. Ever since, CSPE Center I has been operating at full capacity. At Optima Pharma’s site in Gladenbach-Mornshausen near Marburg (Hesse), the current area for assembling, commissioning and qualifying multi-story freeze drying systems has grown by over 50% in the past year. An expansion building with office and assembly space is planned at Optima’s subsidiary Metall+Plastic in Radolfzell on Lake Constance. Metall+Plastic’s isolators and cleanroom technology are essential for aseptically processing pharmaceutical products. This means Optima Pharma is capable of supplying integrated total solutions from a single source. Provided that this strong growth continues, another CSPE Center may be added to the south of the CSPE Center II.

For more information, visit www.100-years-of-future.com