Based in the heart of Italy's Romagna region, FARMO RES is and has always been a family-run business. Founded by Massimo Armetti, the company is now led by his sons, Andrea and Matteo Armetti, in  the roles of chief administrative officer and chief technical officer, respectively.

Farmo Res has been operating in the global thermoforming arena for over 60 years, producing automatic machines for packaging pharmaceutical products, ranging from the packaging of vials, bottles, and syringes, to vertical forming machines for packaging suppositories, ovules, and single-dose products. Davide Forti, sales director at FARMO RES, discussed their experience with us.

 “The company was established in Milan in the 1950s,” begins Mr Forti, “as the mechanical engineering department of a company that dealt with paper and card products  for technical use and  specialised in printed packs. For us, 2024 is a significant year as we will be celebrating 60 years since we filed our first thermoforming patent. Our founder, Massimo Armetti, was 24 years old when he had the idea of ​​patenting unique thermoforming machines that could process reels of polystyrene to create containers for packaging and protecting vials. From there we started supplying all the pharmaceutical companies, first in and around Milan, then throughout Italy and finally across Europe. After the success of the 70s, political tension in Milan pushed the company to relocate production to a new site in the town of Cervia, where the paper and mechanical engineering departments began operating under the name Farmografica. In 1985, when the mechanical engineering department and the paper processing department were split, the resulting entity was named FARMO RES. This new company forged partnerships with other companies in Bologna's packaging valley, which are now world leaders in the industry.

Our decision to remain fully autonomous through the creation of an independent sales network, while actively partnering market leaders, has enabled us to develop and grow our business both in Italy and abroad, fuelled by our passion for our work."

Our aim for Pharmintech 2025

 “Our aim for the show is to bring a thermoforming machine that forms recycled PET packs and fills them with syringes using an innovative loader which limits contact between the glass of the individual syringes” concludes Forti. “We have been exhibiting at Pharmintech since the first fair, which - given its location so close to Bologna and the participation of the major groups - offered us maximum opportunities. Now that it is held in Milan in association with IPACK-IMA, this new event allows us to communicate with different markets and representatives of international buyers, making it a key date on the industry calendar. For us, the fair is an important opportunity to showcase our propensity to innovate and to meet Italian customers, which  - given the role our country plays in the pharmaceuticals industry - make up a significant share of the turnover for Farmo Res. Outside Italy, our focus is trained particularly on the USA at the moment, where we have just opened a branch as part of a joint venture. We already have branches throughout Europe and are investing in increasing our presence in South America and India. We essentially serve multinational customers which, even though headquartered in Europe or the United States, have production sites located all over the world.”

100% in-house design and ever-increasing automation

Moving on to talk about the company's core business, Mr Forti continued: “After the first patent was granted in '64, which still allows us to be a leader in horizontal thermoforming for packaging for vials, bottles, and syringes, other patents followed, including one particularly significant invention for forming aluminium packs for suppositories. This kind of machine is an important part of our range, within a market made up almost entirely of Italian competitors. Rather than focussing solely on to thermoforming, our range of machines embraces a wide variety of automation devices. While the machines all feature automatic loaders with advanced technology, we also produce automation systems for other applications. Our development activities extend over various areas but are all carried out internally, working within Farmo Res to design every aspect, from mechanical to electrical engineering, through to software.

Finally, the market overview shows growing demand for automation over manual control and supervision. To respond to this need, we have designed a series of viewing systems that cater to our requirements, resulting in our internally developed Farmo Vision package, which was created to enable users to monitor the entire process and check packaged products for completeness. This solution includes automation and robotics in order to eliminate repetitive tasks that have so far been performed by humans, allowing people to focus on more skill-dependent  tasks."

PPWR and sustainability

Recent regulatory developments in Europe have opened up extensive debate in the world of packaging, with a particular focus on recycled content percentages, an issue that also concerns Farmo Res although to a somewhat limited extent at this stage.

 “With the PPWR forefront in our minds,” Forti continued, “we have focussed particular attention on developments in the beverages segment. Certain characteristics concerning how the products are used make this segment similar to ours and what we are seeing is that the market is clearly moving towards the use of recycled PET. Drug usage generates very little plastic waste and, importantly, pharmaceutical packaging is essential for product protection. Therefore, we feel that the most logical approach is the one adopted in the food and beverage industry, i.e.  the use of recycled PET where possible, as PET is a circular material. It is important to remember that paper production has significant impact too, although forest stewardship can offset this, and bioplastics, with the sugar cane or corn farming these materials require, have an impact on social sustainability due to the inevitable conversion of farmland.”

One last thing to remember on the use of paper is that its manufacturing processes generate a very fine dust that is often difficult to manage. In 2000, we developed machines with access balconies and cantilevered units because the pharmaceutical industry requires inspectability and cleanliness, in addition to process visibility. Today, however, all this work will have been in vain if we are required to product syringes in a controlled environment only to then package them in cardboard boxes.”