The group expects to sell several thousand tonnes of the amorphous polymer this year

The group expects to sell several thousand tonnes of the amorphous polymer this year

Ticona is planning a second cyclo-olefin copolymer plant to meet anticipated demand for the amorphous polymer. Ticona president Lyndon Cole told delegates at last week’s conference on COC in pharmaceutical packaging, hosted by Ticona and Schott Forma Vitrum in Oberhausen, that he did not fear any shortage of supply.

“I can assure you we are already planning where the next COC plant will be. If the LCD market develops as expected, other applications will take up and other producers could join in. If you fill up our plants, you will be the last to worry about where COC will come from.” The company expects to sell several thousand tonnes of its COC this year, against its current 30,000-tonne annual capacity at Oberhausen.

Cole criticised the slow development of pharmaceutical packaging applications in syringes, vials and blister packs, due to the slow registration and process validation procedure. He said “several dozen” applications had been developed at companies such as Schott, Alcan, Owens-Illinois and Heinz.

However, German glass giant Schott has successfully substituted COC for glass in injection-moulded syringes and blow-moulded vials. Schott’s TopPac range of pre-fillable syringes, for emergency cardiac use, was introduced to the market at the end of 2003 for Boehringer Ingelheimer.