Almost 150 British pharmaceutical equipment suppliers have already signed up to exhibit at ACHEMA 2009.
The event, which is to be staged at Frankfurt Messe exhibition hall in Germany from 11 to 15 May. The event aims to maximise export sales opportunities for businesses by attracting global buyers of pharmaceutical products and services.
The exhibition space will feature more than 350 exhibitors covering 30,000m2 and will be packed with pharmaceutical equipment for dosing, moulding, filling, sealing, packing, labelling and inspection, transportation and storage.
Companies include Malvern Instruments, Newman Labelling, Watson Marlow Bredel and Whitehouse Scientific.
The event also includes a congress comprising 900 lectures focused on state-of-the-art developments.
ACHEMA enables senior managers and technicians from around the world to assess at a single event the latest products, processes and services across a series of technology themes such as: Pumps, Compressors, Valves; Mechanical Processes; Thermal Processes; and Pharmaceutical, Packaging and Storage Techniques.
"Pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers are increasingly adopting quality by design (QBD) initiatives to achieve faster paybacks from their r&d investments, by generating robust, optimised processes that improve intermediate and final product yields," said Mike Day, UK and Ireland representative for ACHEMA.
"For QBD to be effective, companies need to maintain a complete understanding of the range of relevant process technologies available. Their knowledge base often has to stretch from product development through to final dosage form manufacturing. With Process Analytical Technology (PAT) also becoming a key part of the QBD philosophy, ACHEMA offers an ideal "one-stop" snapshot of industry trends and innovations. As well as the exhibition groups mentioned earlier, ACHEMA's Laboratory and Analytical Techniques halls together with those covering instrumentation, control and automation techniques offer global buyers and specifiers a myriad of opportunities to explore the latest developments in these vital technology areas."
Pharmaceutical manufacturing is a now a truly global industry, with the majority of new plants being built in areas of high economic growth, such as India, China, Eastern Europe and South America.
ACHEMA's exhibitor and visitor numbers from these regions continue to expand at very high rates. There was a more than 50% increase between ACHEMA's 2003 and 2006 events. That trend is continuing as ACHEMA 2009 approaches.
"ACHEMA attracts exhibitors from small emerging companies to large established multinational organisations," said Day. "The event really does offer something for everyone. Giant global corporations are taking booths of more than 1000m2 in area to highlight their range of capabilities and cement relationships with international customers. Alongside these large groups we will have start-up businesses using 12m2 booths to introduce their innovative skills to the global market place."