Pharmaceutical industry & healthcare sector

The pharmaceutical industry and healthcare sector are amongst the industries with the highest turnover worldwide. What human and animal medicine are to the pharmaceutical industry, food supplements are to the healthcare sector. Hygienic, aseptic and/or sterile valves that enable the transport of sensitive goods are used across all branches of the industries depending on the specific application.

The pharmaceutical industry and healthcare sector produce a diverse range of medicines and food supplements. An important issue in this sector is ensuring that hygienic processes are maintained in order to protect the preparations against contamination and impurities. Naturally, these processes also play an important role in the (automated) plants operated by the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Therefore, all of the components used must comply with the plant operator’s requirements for hygienic design – which naturally also includes the installed valves.

Pinch valves are modular thanks to their simple construction and can thus be easily adapted to meet the requirements of the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare sector. Aseptic, hygienic and sterile pinch valve configurations can be utilised in the various different production steps without any problems. Furthermore, AKO Armaturen supplies special EHEDG-certified pinch valves that are designed to meet the requirements of hygienic design.

Pinch valves can be used for a whole range of production processes – as control valves for transporting raw materials or for finished products such as powders, tablets, lozenges, liquids or similar items. They can also be used as dosing valves for filling canisters, bottles, glasses, cans, vials or tubes.

Pinch valves that can be used in the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare sector are SIP (sterilization-in-place), CIP (cleaning-in-place) and sometimes RIP (rinse-in-place) compatible. This means that they are easy to clean, sterilise and disinfect in their installed state (in place).