Growth in emerging markets has driven demand for equipment that automates quality control. This serves to ensure that the product is compliant with standards in established markets and helps cut manufacturing costs.
Northern Ireland-based Sepha cites this demand as a reason for its successful 2009. The private equity backed firm manufactures non-destructive leak testing, deblistering and lab-scale blister packaging machines and has targeted international sales to drive growth through the downturn.
Investments made in overseas sales and marketing now appear to be paying dividends, with the company highlighting India, China and South America as regions that drove growth in 2009.
Aubrey Sayers, chief executive at Sepha, explained that for companies establishing operations in emerging markets “the emphasis must still be on production quality”. Sepha’s machines help companies achieve this by automating the checking of pharmaceutical packaging quality.
In 2009 Sepha sold non-contact leak testing equipment to Sanofi-Aventis and Zydus-Cadilla in India. Late last year the company attended P-Mec India in Mumbai, 12 months after its executives were caught up in the terrorist attacks, to help continue its growth in the country.
Waste not, want not
In established markets Sepha claims it has benefited from pharma’s drive to reduce waste and disposal costs. The company’s deblistering machines can safely remove products from defective packaging, allowing it the drug to be repackaged and sold.
Furthermore, companies which switch from methylene blue dye leak testing to the non-destructive alternative, offered by companies such as Sepha and PTI, can eliminate the loss of product during the process.