Automation Use Driven By Pharmaceutical Production Expansion

PMMI, which is the Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, goes on to note that the forecasted expansion of the pharma machinery market happens to be driven by enhancements in tech, sustainability, automation as well as supply chain issues.

As per PMMI, in 2022, shipments pertaining to pharmaceutical machinery amounted to $1.1 billion, thereby representing 11% of the packaging machinery market, having a forecasted compound annual growth rate- CAGR of 7.8% by 2027. This growth trajectory happens to surpass that of numerous larger sectors, such as the food industry, which is anticipated to have a CAGR of 7.3%.

It is well to be noted that the pharmaceutical sector has recently gone on to announce certain high levels of production expansion investments. A major portion of the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturers have, as a matter of fact, announced capacity expansion in the billions, with most of the investment going toward expanding capacity across the state of North Carolina, says the director, custom research at PMMI, Rebecca Marquez. This has gone on to push the forecasted growth when it comes to packaging machine shipments to the pharmaceutical sector up for the years 2023 as well as 2024 as compared to other industries.

Marquez goes ahead and cites e-commerce and central pharmacies as major reasons for the growth. As e-commerce goes on to proliferate, there happens to be a trend toward multi-client order fulfillment centers. This spectrum will go on to represent a significant growth opportunity for packaging machine builders. Moreover, driving growth within the pharmaceutical machinery segment is the rise when it comes to central pharmacies, offering the ability for third parties to go ahead and fill prescriptions in the U.S. central pharmacies that happen to sit between retail pharmacies as well as wholesalers and serve multiple pharmacies. Moreover, central pharmacies are indeed being used in order to serve mail-order prescriptions within the growing e-commerce spectrum.

As far as the plans for 2024 are concerned, PMMI remarked that manufacturers have identified reliability/repeatability- 83% as their top priorities when it comes to assessing as well as comparing machines, and flexibility and faster changeover- 76% as crucial improvements for the next-generation machines. It is well to be noted that automating costs, labor, changing packaging formats because of sustainability requirements, and delays in acquiring parts happened to be all identified as issues for the industry in their respective domains. And finally, the latest data goes on to show the top five ways in which the OEMs as well as the suppliers can best help pharmaceutical packaging operations, with equipment precision as well as reliability going ahead and leading the way.