Before joining SGD Pharma as CEO in July 2022, Olivier Rousseau spent four years managing Verallia France as CEO and President of the bottle, jars glass packaging manufacturer.

“This experience gave me a good understanding of the moulded glass manufacturing process when joining SGD Pharma in July 2022,” he observes.

“Prior to Verallia, I worked for more than 20 years at The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, where my roles included Chief Financial Officer of the EMEA region. After that, I led the consumer business unit for the EMEA region, managing a portfolio with a turnover of €3 billion.”

Applying 30-plus years of industrial experience to his new role, Mr Rousseau took on the challenge of learning the specificities of the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry and glass manufacturing.

“SGD Pharma is the market leader in moulded glass manufacturing and has an excellent pedigree in investment to meet customer demand. With its strong track record of developing strategies to support global growth – already with a global footprint, I felt confident to be able to accelerate the implementation of SGD Pharma’s global strategy, focusing on profitable growth and high-value added products … as well as continuing our initiatives into making glass vials and bottles even more sustainable for society,” he explains.

As CEO, Mr Rousseau is tasked with driving the company’s mission to grow both organically and through acquisition, providing customers with high quality, innovative products to meet their changing demands, while improving industrial performance across all plants.

“To serve our customers, our efforts are focused on three main areas: quality of our products and services; service levels; and innovations on both products and processes,” he underlines. “We leverage continuous improvements across the organisation. I have a strong interest in corporate social responsibility and decarbonisation which are both significant areas of investment for SGD Pharma,” he adds.

Global support

In October 2021 SGD Pharma was acquired from China Jianyin Investment Ltd (JIC) by a new shareholder, European private equity firm PAI Partners (PAI).

SGD Pharma’s global footprint currently encompasses five manufacturing sites; two in France: Saint-Quentin-Lamotte and Sucy-en-Brie; one in Kipfenberg, Germany; one in Vemula, India; and one in Zhanjiang, China.

“These businesses manufacture and supply through our nine sales offices worldwide (in New York, Sao Paulo, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Kipfenberg, Hyderabad, Shanghai and Guangzhou) which means that our customers have local support in their geography, supported by our international agents and distributors,” explains Mr Rousseau. “Our sites have a part of autonomy, with their own customers, as well as part of our matrix structure. We have regional and corporate reporting structures, to ensure that everyone has a voice and is represented.”

The regional management teams stay connected to share group ideas and ensure that successful initiatives at plants are shared/valued across the company and can be implemented at other sites.

SGD Pharma also shares its know-how and expertise through the FEVE, the European Container Glass Federation representing glass packaging for food and drink, perfumery and cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and glass tableware makers. “SGD Pharma is proud to be an active and leading member and voice in the industry,” attests Mr Rousseau. “SGD Pharma offers training and other ways to promote the industry and we also benefit from shared knowledge on trends and investments. […] In 2022 we were active participants in the United Nations Year of Glass, which SGD Pharma celebrated with a collaborative spotlight on pharmaceutical-grade glass,” he adds.

Agile acceleration

Exposure to the full extent of applications suited to glass packaging has highlighted the value of glass, “especially when used for such crucial life-saving therapeutics,” notes Mr Rousseau. “The pharmaceutical glass packaging market is a fast-growing and promising market with lots of opportunities for important innovations that will transform drug delivery/storage,” he observes. “It is a market where we are having to react quickly to customer demand. For example, last year, we launched our IDENCY vial that combine the high chemical and mechanical resistance of moulded glass with the same outer diameter as standard tubular glass [for ease of integration into existing filling lines] in response to the major market need for tubular vials after Covid 19 that caused massive supply chain disruption. Innovation in glass is possible, and it can be fast.”

SGD Pharma reports that its 10MR IDENCY vials show stronger chemical durability and stronger mechanical resistance when compared with standard 10R tubular vials. The 10ml vials are available in both clear and amber glass, offering a solution for pharmaceutical companies facing increased supply chain pressures from the growing demand for parenteral drugs.

Combining the strength of moulded glass with superior aesthetics quality and weight reduction, SGD Pharma’s EasyLyo vials are more suited to extreme conditions encountered during the lyophilization (freeze drying) process, by which a drug product is transformed from a liquid to a stable solid by removing water or other solvents, and are now available in sizes 5, 20, 25, 30, 50 and 100ml.

“SGD Pharma has – like all suppliers in the industry – been exposed to the same pressures but our focus is long-term: we are looking to the future and investing in product development that will enable pharma customers to continue to rely on us, day-in day-out” states Mr Rousseau.

“We have fantastic relationships with clients, serving long-term partnerships,” he continues.

“We work on the basis that customer voice drives our innovation. Our role as a key supplier for our pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and veterinary customers is reliant upon us playing critical role in their supply chain infrastructure. We are more than just suppliers; our role is to keep their businesses operational and focused on the patient: getting the drugs to customers in the safest way possible. To do this, we need to overcome whatever obstacles are in our way, in the best way that SGD Pharma can. This means we try to be ahead of the competitors, not just in our product portfolio and in our quality of services and support, but more importantly in our product availability and flexibility with our ex-stock capacity. This means that customers who are reliant on SGD Pharma for their supply chain needs are usually able to access their packaging on shorter timelines, and we have done our utmost to ensure that customers are not exposed to shortages.”

Optimising energy efficiency

SGD Pharma’s corporate strategy is aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the company has set long-term objectives for minimising its environmental impact by lowering energy consumption and CO2 emissions (a 46% reduction is targeted by 2040), as well as optimising water use, waste management and resource efficiency.

Across the plants, all manufacturing operations adhere to a continuous programme of decarbonisation, which “enables us to improve energy efficiency site by site,” reports Mr Rousseau. “We will use all the opportunities of our furnace construction in the coming years to reduce energy consumption with electrics or hybrid resources.” An overriding objective is to “buy more green electricity.”

In 2015 SGD Pharma equipped its Saint-Quentin-Lamotte plant with a full electrical furnace which, along with a second oxy-fuel combustion furnace employing electrical boosting, has enabled the facility to produce glass with lower carbon emissions. The Sucy factory has also benefitted from a furnace rebuild, with the upgraded technology resulting in a 13% reduction in energy consumption as well as a significant reduction on NOx emissions. The French plant’s hot end was also optimised with electrical boosting and a deep refiner to improve on flexibility.

Other sustainability measures include a heat recovery project at the Vemula facility in India which manufactures both tubular and moulded vials. Installation of a waste heat recovery system in 2019 enables air conditioning to be generated from recovered energy; in 2020 this technology was expanded to further boost the furnace’s energy recovery and recoup a large amount of waste heat while avoiding significant scope 2 CO2 emissions.

In China, construction of a cullet yard roof at the Zhanjiang plant protects the glass material from rainwater, thereby reducing its humidity content and contributing to furnace energy-saving efforts.

SGD Pharma was awarded Gold EcoVadis certification in January 2023 with a score of 75/100. The business is in the top 1% of companies rated by EcoVadis in the manufacture of glass and the glass products industry for sustainable procurement and in the top 2% for labour and human rights.

“This recognition from EcoVadis is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team, and we are proud to have achieved such a strong score,” says Mr Rousseau. “SGD Pharma has a clear ESG plan and we’re working on three pillars: environmental, social and governance […]. We intend to continue improving on all pillars.”

Active investment

In line with its growth strategy, an active investment plan for the long- and short-term future ensures that SGD Pharma’s five glass manufacturing plants have some of the most up-to-date technology in the world.

“Massive investment” is in the works for SGD Pharma’s Chinese factory “to better serve our global and local beauty customers,” according to Mr Rousseau.

The European market also stands to benefit from planning improvements at SGD Pharma’s Sucy, Saint-Quentin-Lamotte and Kipfenberg sites, including the reconstruction of the second furnace at the Sucy plant, using “the best available technologies” to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use electricity and natural gas power for better heat recovery and electricity boosting.

SGD Pharma India has accrued a substantial market share since its acquisition of Cogent Glass (a moulded and tubular Type 1 glass manufacturing facility) in 2013. Recently the company has invested “heavily” in India to grow its Type 1 moulded glass output as well as its converting business. Following an upgrade and expansion of the furnace at its Vermula plant last year, SGD Pharma India’s overall capacity is now over 1.25 billion pcs/year, comprised of 350 million pcs of Type 1 moulded glass and 900-plus million pcs of tubular vials and ampoules.

“The experience of our facility in China, where we have become market leaders in the manufacture of glass for cosmetics and beauty products has led SGD Pharma to do a global review of our products portfolio to enable us to extend this offer to customers in other markets,” Mr Rousseau explains. “The demand of cosmetics, CBD and foodstuffs (such as kombucha) means that our customer base is growing beyond our core markets.”

Future collaboration with Corning to expand pharmaceutical packaging in India

The success of the Vemula facility in India has enabled SGD Pharma to take a large market share in that local market, reports Mr Rousseau, “giving us confidence in the ability of the business to scale up our tubular production alongside that of moulded glass for pharma grade packaging.”

In February 2023 SGD Pharma announced a future collaboration with Corning Inc to build a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical glass tubing manufacturing plant and treatment facility in Telangana State, India – the first time two leaders in pharmaceutical glass have joined forces on such a project. Marrying Corning’s high-quality pharmaceutical tubing technology with SGD Pharma’s glass vial manufacturing and converting expertise, the combined €60 million investment will benefit SGD Pharma’s customers.

The partnership is anticipated to create up to 150 new jobs at the site and will “continue our growth in India and for global market […] with output planned for 2024,” Mr Rousseau confirms.

Looking more broadly to the future, he is confident that demand for glass as a sustainable and trusted material will continue to increase. “We are already seeing growing trends in most industries for glass packaging. For example, in beauty and cosmetics the trend of ‘glassification’ [pivoting from plastic to glass packaging] will only strengthen as more consumers become sustainability-conscious and recognise the value of glass for its infinite recyclability as well as its unique protection over products.”

Likewise, the pharmaceutical industry will continue to depend on glass to safeguard and deliver vital vaccines and other life-saving medications, an implacable need to which SGD Pharma will respond “by innovating and scaling up to ensure customers can access the products they require to meet their growing capacity,” says Mr Rousseau.

“It is key that we work together to serve and deliver to our customers. I’m thrilled to be leading the team as we continue to improve our glass primary packaging offer to meet the demands of the future,” he concludes.

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