When a vaccine for coronavirus is approved, demand will be through the roof and for every dose produced, a glass vial will be needed for packaging. A recent Forbes article shed some light on who will be manufacturing them. The Stevanato Group is a 70+ year-old manufacturer based 20 miles outside of Venice in a small town called Piombino Dese. The family-owned business is already working in three daily shifts, seven days a week to make packaging that ranges from insulin pen cartridges (they’re the world’s largest manufacturer of these) to glass vials for vaccines.
In preparation for the Covid-19 vaccine, Stevanato Group has hired more than 580 new employees in the first half of 2020 alone. In June, they inked a deal with Norway’s Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations to supply 100 million borosilicate glass vials for up to 2 billion doses of vaccine.