September 2009 Editor's Picks: Products from Gore and OYSTAR

Gore PharmBIO Products
Sanitary gasket maintains dimensional integrity
Gore PharmBIO Products (Elkton, MD) offers its STA-PURE sanitary gasket for applications such as process steam, ultrapure water systems, media preparation, and upstream or downstream processing. The gasket is made of PTFE that has been processed for greater strength and dimensional stability. As a result, the gasket does not extrude into the bore of a piping system and reduces the likelihood of entrapment. The gasket also is designed to withstand 500 steam-in-place cycles without undergoing a change in its dimensional properties.

The expanded PTFE is of high purity and contains few extractables. Upon clients’ request, Gore can provide full lot traceability to the raw materials used to manufacture the gaskets. The gasket can be integrated into various systems, thereby enabling operations to be standardized. In addition, the gasket meets the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’s BioProcessing Equipment standard.

OYSTAR USA
Cartoners move products safely
The S series cartoners from OYSTAR USA (Fairfield, NJ) are designed for efficiency. Mechanical fingers incorporated into the units’ picking arms open cartons before they are placed directly into the carton chain. This positive-opening system is intended to prevent cartons from being improperly placed and obstructing the chain.

The cartoners include servo-driven technology that communicates with other machines in the packaging line. The servos and the handling system track the position of components to be cartoned and help improve product handling and efficiency.

OYSTAR custom engineers infeed systems to fit clients’ applications. The company can provide infeed systems that load different components such as blister packs, inhalers, and product literature into a carton. The S series is designed to move components into the carton chain accurately, and the units require little maintenance.