The ALPLA Group is expanding its presence in the global market for pharmaceutical packaging by establishing a joint venture with Inden Pharma. ALPLA, an international specialist in plastic packaging and recycling, and Spanish pharmaceutical packaging company Inden Pharma, are starting a long-term partnership for the certified production of bottles, containers and closures in clean rooms, starting in March.
The joint venture includes two ALPLA pharma production sites in Greece (Koropi) and Poland (Żyrardów) and the two Spanish plants of Inden Pharma in Ibi, north of Alicante, as well as a jointly built fifth plant in Germany (Markdorf), which is scheduled to start production in June.
“We combine global presence with high standards and technology leadership. Together, we are closer to our customers and are expanding our range of high-quality, cost-effective and sustainable packaging solutions,” says Philipp Lehner, CEO of ALPLA. Since entering the fast-growing market of pharmaceutical packaging in 2016, ALPLA has continuously expanded into new countries, technologies and product categories. Inden Pharma is focused on strong growth. In the last four years, the company has tripled its sales to reach 30.5 million euros in 2022. Inden Pharma annually sells more than 550 million containers in 35 countries on 5 continents.
Capacity increase
Around 800 million packaging products will be produced in the first year at the five jointly operated facilities. The standard products offered by Inden Pharma will be integrated into the joint catalogue of ALPLA pharma and Inden Pharma products, reaching an offer of more than 150 articles. It has also planned to expand the business to other places outside of Europe in the future, such as India, the USA or Central and South America. “Our international customers benefit from a greater variety of plants, proximity, high flexibility as well as the service and quality in deliveries that has been habitual tin recent years. It is quite a challenge, not only for Inden Pharma, but for the entire organization of the joint venture, since our objective is to achieve leadership in the pharmaceutical plastic packaging market in the next five years,” explains Juan Guillem González, owner and CEO of Inden Pharma.
Walter Knes, Managing director of ALPLA pharma, emphasizes the importance of technology and know-how transfer: “We bring together our strengths and distribution networks, use the most modern injection and extrusion blow moulding techniques, and can rely on our long-standing recycling expertise for future developments.”
Details about the partnership have been kept confidential.
With around 23,300 employees at 190 locations worldwide, the Austrian ALPLA Group is one of the world’s leading companies in the production and recycling of plastic packaging, whose turnover in 2022 exceeded 5 billion Euros. The company has been producing certified clean-room bottles, containers and closures since 2016 and founded the ALPLA pharma division in 2019.
Inden Pharma is a Spanish company specialized in manufacturing plastic packaging solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. The company, headquartered in Ibi, north of Alicante, employs approximately 160 employees, operates in 35 countries.
