The world’s biggest packaging business, Amcor, has opened a new ISO certified medical packaging facility for the Asia Pacific region, with co-extruders and flexo printing centrestage at the Singapore-based plant.
Amcor says the new facility is designed for healthcare industry needs for quality and regulatory compliance, with capacity for growth to support medical-device manufacturers. It aims to capitalise on the region’s increasing demand for healthcare products, which according to Amcor is “rapidly growing”.
The new facility comprises cleanroom manufacturing environments, capability in three, seven, and nine-layer co-extrusion blown film, and the latest flexographic printing presses. It is fully certified to ISO 13485.
“With the Asia Pacific healthcare packaging market expected to grow at a more than 8 per cent through 2026, Amcor is laying the foundation to support that growth with this advanced facility in the region,” said Amcor’s chief commercial officer, Peter Konieczny. “Our innovative and regional approach in this space, coupled with our commitment to sustainability, will ensure our continued industry leadership for customers of all sizes, as well as the environment.”
Amcor is also establishing an innovation centre for healthcare films in the Singapore facility, in order it says, to drive advancement in co-extrusion blown film technology. Amcor says it will leverage its global product platform and the strengthened innovation capabilities enabled by this new centre to bring "new technologies, innovations and compelling products" to market to serve customers in Asia Pacific.
“Healthcare is one of the fastest growing industries in the region, and customers are looking for packaging suppliers that can improve their speed to the market,” said Scott Jackson, Amcor’s general manager, Southeast Asia Healthcare. “Our new Singapore facility is a meaningful step towards expanding our product offerings and increasing our capacity to support customer growth, now and well into the future.”
Having previously pledged that all of its packaging will be recyclable or reusable by 2025, the new facility will use printing technology that is water based with no solvent emissions. In addition, its multilayer blown films can produce recycle-ready products, and Amcor says its multilayer film technology will enable new product innovation with a lower carbon footprint.
