Virbac Group, a 6ᵉ global veterinary pharmaceutical group, relied on Volumic 3D printers to develop a completely innovative animal health sampling cap.
The advantage of liquid medications is that the quantities of product to be administered can be precisely dosed according to the weight of the animal (or person) to be treated to avoid over- or under-dosing.
On the other hand, the main difficulty with liquid drugs lies in the risk of potential contamination of the user of the product: especially in the veterinary field, avoiding any contact with people living around the animal to be treated is always an obligation for drugs, because they may be in unsuitable concentration for humans or bring certain toxicological concerns.
This presents a challenge for pharmaceutical companies to find the right packaging system that is perfectly suited to achieve this goal, while still being easy to use, to provide safety, confidence and compliance.
This is what Virbac’s Smart Cap offers, a complete, safe and simple solution, in compliance with good medical practices, and therefore allowing a better application of liquid products by users. This cap is totally innovative in animal health, but also in human health.
In practice, this cap allows a clean and non-contact sampling of the product, the system is without needle and thus avoids having to pierce the elastomer cap.
The user safely withdraws liquid from a vial by connecting a syringe directly to the cap.
An integrated air intake facilitates sampling and ensures product cleanliness during use.
The opening and closing system is intuitive, and approved to the double notion of “resistant to opening by children” and “suitable for seniors”.
During the 5 years of development, some of the 10 parts of this cap were able to evolve thanks to 3D printing and the reactivity of the company Volumic. In a conventional process, this type of evolution of injected parts would have required new prototype molds involving delays and costs.
Using the Volumic Stream 30 Pro MK2 3D printer, they were able to produce the prototypes in question using materials that are mechanically close to those of the original parts. This made it possible to test and validate these parts internally in a few days at a cost of a few euros. More importantly, this very short time frame allowed for a successful and timely product launch, avoiding the impact of several months of delay.
Additive manufacturing has revolutionized our daily work and the purchase of the Stream 30 Pro printer paid for itself after only one month!
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