Safety inhalation with the NEXThaler

Filled with high precision

Due to intuitive application the intended dose reaches the lungs reliably. Furthermore, a highly effective combination of proven active ingredients assures a well-tolerated treatment in case of difficulty breathing and dyspnea. After every successful inhalation process, a counter indicates to the user the number of medication doses remaining.

When it comes to filling and final assembly Chiesi trusts in Harro Höfliger. The turnkey system which was put into operation in the French Blois in 2015, fills and assembles up to 70 units per minute.

At the start of the filling process, the empty inhaler housings are taken from trays and conveyed to the intermittent oval turret on a puck belt. Gripper units push the housings into the production machine. This is followed by a performance test: After opening the inhaler, a compressed air impulse opens a small flap in the air intake shaft, called the Breath Actuation Mechanism (BAM).

This mechanism ensures that the patient inhales deeply enough and, at the same time, serves to activate the counting unit when the inhaler is closed.

Next the empty weight of the inhaler is determined as the basis for the subsequent fill quantity control. A high-precision auger doser fills the powder reservoir of the NEXThaler^®, which is then weighed again.

Inhalers that exceed or fall below the fill weight limit are sorted out. In the next step the caps of the powder reservoirs are fed to the line from a conveyor unit.

A high-speed robot arm picks up the individual caps with the correct orientation and places them properly positioned into a transport system for assembly. Closing the NEXThaler^® triggers the counting mechanism and a camera checks the counter for correct functionality based on the displayed counter position.