A complete range of packaging services for all pharmaceutical forms, with reliability guaranteed by over 30 years of success and cutting-edge solutions. A slender partner that combines the flexibility of a SME with metrics and industrial approaches of a large company and has a clear target: helping pharmaceutical companies to overcome all those small and big obstacles related to packaging preventing them to focus on high value activities or to develop new initiatives, as explained by Federico Casaglia, one of CIT directors.
What is the philosophy of your company?
Our philosophy is written in the history of the group.
CIT was founded in 1986 and has remained true to its spirit for over 30 years: the awareness of the importance of being good helper in order to bring out a distinctive result for our customers and for us.
Today CIT is going through a period of strong discontinuity, with the aim of aligning its portfolio of services to what the market will require in the coming years and looking both at serialization and at future further automation to be prompted by the need to carry out processes increasingly integrated with each other in view of Pharma 4.0. We have implemented and will continue in the future to implement a truly impressive investment plan.
What kind of services do you offer?
We offer GMP services. In addition to traditional secondary and tertiary packaging services, to which serialization is added, CIT also provides value-added ones capable of satisfying a specific customer need: to get to the market in an appropriate way and in challenging times. For this reason CIT offers support in defining and managing the artworks, in procuring packaging materials through a validated network of suppliers, in releasing batches to the market and in managing the supply chain up to customer warehouses all over the world.
Which segments of the pharmaceutical market do you target?
CIT wants to be a one-stop shop. At present, we deal with many segments: ethical drugs, high activity drugs and antibiotics in controlled premises, biological drugs, OTC drugs, medical and diagnostic devices, as well as dietary supplements in segregated area. But it is still not enough for us. In the coming months we will
start clinical packing services for clinical trials and we will move towards the new frontiers of biotechnologies and “tailor-made drugs”. These activities require a high level of professional specialisation and extreme attention to product quality. Lastly, we will soon be ready to handle veterinary drugs as well.
What kind of technology do you use and what are your industry standards?
As today examples, I’d like to mention the integration between Erp and the serialization system, and emphasize that, in a logic of integration, we have prepared a qualified ICT infrastructure and a series of processes ensuring adequate governance. In addition, we have always had a policy of investing in young people to work with persons of proven experience responsible for transferring their knowledge and developing the most appropriate skills in order to meet the challenges ahead.
What distinguishes your production lines from those of other companies?
Our production lines are based on a 30-year partnership with the market leaders on packaging lines and we carefully follow their continuous evolutions. CIT has always used a network of suppliers that are qualified and recognized as best-in-class. This choice allows us to guarantee the business continuity of our customers and to have a reliable and scalable technological base. We have been pushing hard on Pharma 4.0 in recent years. The starting point was the risk analysis and the related qualification of IT infrastructure. There are no Industry 4.0 approaches without a solid, validated IT infrastructure: it would be like building a beautiful house without the foundations. That is why, in recent years, we have focused on this aspect and we consider it a fundamental and distinctive strength.
Are you able to expand the range of packages you offer?
Yes, absolutely. CIT is an evolutionary partner: in over 30 years, it is the third plant we build in order to follow the evolution of market demands. We have 2 ISO-8 areas available and qualified for integrations also in primary packaging.
We will soon be entering the clinical supply and integrating clinical trials. We are also starting Biotech part. Within a few months we plan to complete these new segments to represent in the market a single interface, able to address all types of packaging with high added value.
What role does your team of qualified persons (QPs) play within the company?
Qualified persons (QPs) play a vital role in bringing products into the European market. Our QP team ensures fast and competent management of specific issues and technical challenges across the entire spectrum of pharmaceutical dosages. We are very demanding with our QP team: they deal with traditional activities of GMP insurance, but also with audits to third parties and with the release of product on the market.
Our QPs have a strong design and business component ranging from Pharma 4.0 to the opening of new business segments.
They are in charge of the major projects referring to the company change with the exact aim of designing native GMP processes. For example, there are several interesting new Industry 4.0 technologies. It is risky to adopt them and then try to fit them into a GMP frame, as it often happens. That is why we have put our QPs at the head of our evolutionary projects, supported by multidisciplinary teams: they have to draw an evolutionary path born and developing harmoniously with our quality processes.
Although we are dealing with a final phase of the pharmaceutical process, I am convinced that being today a QP in CIT is a very involving challenge and one of the most interesting opportunities for managerial growth in our sector.
Do you also provide distribution and supply chain services?
Usually a customer does not want a packaged product, but a marketable one. We package the product, but we are also able to add subsequent value-added services, such as batch release and transport from our factory to customers’ warehouses all over the world. From an operational point of view, this takes place by sharing the individual specific procedures based on the standards of the customer himself.
How do you deal with your customers?
Customers are always at the heart of our processes and we tend to try to customize processes specifically to each one of them. Our only constraints are GMP dictates: within this framework we rely exclusively on customer requirements to guide our processes.
What does quality mean for CIT?
We believe that quality has to do with another concept: integrity. It means doing things in a certain way even when you are not checked or when, apparently, it does not show up in the service.
Quality as compliance to specifications and requirements is not a differentiating factor for us: it is taken for granted, it is a necessary condition. Our vision starts here and goes beyond: it has to do with twenty-year relations without obstacles or surprises. It has to do with tranquillity.