Report: How medicinal bottles are manufactured

CAIRO - 6 March 2023: You might have held medicine bottles several times in your life, but never thought of how these medicinal bottles are manufactured, thinking they are normal glass bottles. 

 

But in fact, the medicinal glass is manufactured with a mixture of high purity sand and limestone. They are melted in special furnaces at a temperature of 1570 degrees Celsius and formed at a temperature of 1320 degrees Celsius. The furnace that melts the glass never turns off from its operation until its service is terminated.

 

Egypt Today spent 4 hours inside the factory of the Arab Pharmaceutical Glass Manufacturing Company, as the largest governmental factory in the Middle East and Africa, affiliated with the Acdima Group of Pharmaceuticals, to reveal the secrets of this industry, whose product conforms to American quality standards to provide it within the production requirements for the localization of the pharmaceutical industry, according to the directives of the political leadership.  

 

The factory of the Arab Company for the manufacture of pharmaceutical glass is located in Jabal Ataka, Suez Governorate, as it is the oldest heavy industry that started in Egypt in 1983 on an area of ​​209,875 square meters. And the third with the highest standards of American quality to secure medicine for Egyptians.

 

Dr. Olfat Ghorab, head of the government-affiliated Akdima Group of Medicines, confirmed that the factory was established in 1983 and is still operating until now. It provides pharmaceutical glass as one of the most important sterile production requirements, as its total investments amount to 4 billion pounds. Noting that new investments estimated at 400 million pounds have been pumped recently in order to raise its production capacity to achieve local sufficiency and export abroad as one of the goals of the political leadership working to localize the industry.

 

Dr. Olfat Ghorab explained that the factory is working to achieve integration in manufacturing production requirements according to the highest quality standards to secure medicine for Egyptians, noting that the national industries are able to meet the needs of the state and establish the foundations of the national industry.

 

In the same context, Dr. Salah Al-Akrish, Director of the Production and Maintenance Sector at the factory, said that the production that is currently being manufactured is carried out according to the highest American quality standards. He added that one million and 200 thousand bottles are manufactured per day. The factory operates 24 hours a day and exports to many Arab and African countries.

 

The production process is controlled through an automated control room, the production follows from start to finish automatically. Exports are made to 9 countries, including Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Morocco. The factory also targets Australia, Brazil and the Philippines in 2023.