ACHEMA 2024 – News from the healthcare process industry

Following the end of the pandemic, ACHEMA, which took place in Frankfurt from 10 to 14 June, once again recorded a significant increase in the number of participants. Over 2,800 exhibitors from more than 56 countries discussed with 106,000 users and purchasing managers from the pharmaceutical/biotech, chemical and food industries.

ACHEMA in Frankfurt is the world's leading trade fair for all areas of the process industry and offers a comprehensive and cross-sector range of technologies and services. The high visitor numbers once again emphasized the importance of international exchange on innovations in plants and processes. This time, the trade fair organizers had chosen 6 focus topics: Digital, Pharma, Lab, Green, Process and Hydrogen.

For the healthcare sector, however, the topics of digitalisation and sustainability remained the most prominent, especially as in many places the visible technological leaps tend to be smaller. The continuous mechanical and design optimization of process systems over the past decades seems to offer less and less scope for significant improvements.

The high-speed machines that used to be hyped up are being pushed further into the background in favor of modular and flexible systems with low to medium speeds but high output quality.

This consistently takes into account the continuing trend of many pharmaceutical customers towards high-priced speciality preparations with small batch sizes. This applies in particular to the still rapidly growing injectable biotech products with sensitive handling and demanding manufacturing processes.

Trends in digitalization

Many industrial customers in the healthcare segment are keen to consistently integrate or connect as many systems and lines as possible through digitalization, from laboratory or scale-up systems to blockbuster production.

In addition to seamless documentation of production and quality processes from the cradle to the grave, this technology ideally also enables integrated and cost-saving management of production from the line via the MES level (Manufacturing Execution System) to the group-wide ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning).

Trends in sustainability

On the subject of sustainability, many manufacturers presented their progress in this area. Based on the EU-regulations that came into force in March, the program for refrigeration systems includes reducing refrigerant quantities and switching to non-halogenated cooling agents such as propane or butane.

Everywhere, process equipment manufacturers are continuing their successful efforts to save energy and raw materials for their healthcare customers, whether in work preparation, processing or packaging. Increasing the common parts of systems, optimizing yields and process times and the ever-increasing proportion of green packaging are also playing their part in achieving ambitious climate targets.

We can look forward to seeing the progress made by this creative and innovative manufacturing landscape at the next ACHEMA 2027. 

Dr. Torsten Ziegler I Executive Consultant
Birn+Partners Germany