The global market for Pharmaceutical Glass Packaging is expected to reach US$26.6billion by the year 2027, trailing a post COVID-19 CAGR of 7.9% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027.Glass is made up of 59-80% silica, 5-12% calcium oxide, 12-17% sodium oxide, & 0.5-3.0% aluminum oxide, barium oxide, boric oxide, potassium oxide & magnesium oxide. Glass is the perfect packaging material of choice for 21st-century drugs. Glass is heat resistant & is easy to sterilize. Uniform surface chemistry makes glass more resistant to damage & breakage. Glass is chemically durable & is well suited to protect sensitive drug compounds. Glass ensures drug sterility & reduces the risk of global drug product recalls, supply interruptions & drug shortage. The U.S is expected to witness pharmaceutical glass manufacturing return to the country supported by the Trump government's protectionist policies. COVID-19 induced rethinking of global drug supply chains & escalating tensions between China & the USA will accelerate the reshoring trend. In support of the world's focus on development of COVID-19 vaccine, pharmaceutical packaging is also scaling up operations to keep pace with the ongoing efforts in the space. Companies engaged in development of COVID-19 vaccines are inking agreements with various for making syringes and vials to package the COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna for instance announced a collaborative deal with Catalent in June 2020 for providing vial filling and packaging for initial batch of 100 million doses of vaccine from its US facility in Indiana. The company is expected to produce around 500 million to 1 billion doses annually, starting in 2021 from its US-based production facility, through a strategic partnership with Lonza, enhancing the need for packaging solutions. With the rising incidence of COVID-19 infections all over the world, and the mounting economic and social impacts, the vaccine development initiatives are progressing at a breathtaking pace, inching towards the final trials and commercial production of promising vaccine candidates by the end of 2020 or early 2021. The imperative need to develop a vaccine to curb the highly infectious COVID-19 virus is leading has cut short the vaccine development cycle significantly. Banking upon the extensive research happening worldwide, strategic public-private development partnerships are on the rise across geographies, universities, pharmaceutical industries and public health agencies, coupled with rising government and other funding so as to fast track requisite trial phases, thereby gearing up for quicker manufacturing approvals for promising vaccine. Presently, around 142 experimental vaccines are under studies, focusing on diverse technologies, to efficiently assess clinical outcomes across board. Irrespective of the diverse platforms, the development haste is all set to augur well for the production of vaccine in the near term. About 13 vaccines have entered human trials to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine on healthy volunteers, while 129 are in pre-clinical animal trial studies.

With COVID-19 vaccines moving into late stage testing, pharma majors and governments around the world are looking to ensure packaging supplies for the vaccines. SiO2 Materials Science announced $163 million investment for increasing production capacity of syringes and vials for COVID-19 vaccines and drugs. This investment is in addition to $143 million contract with BARDA, and is intended to prevent any shortage of glass vials that could impede distribution efforts related to COVID-19 vaccine. SiO2's investment will be directed at building a new injection molding facility. Stevanato inked a deal with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), whereby Stevanato will provide supplies of 100 million Type 1 Borosilicate glass vials for packaging of 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The US government has already started investments in required manufacturing capacity. The Operation Warp Speed along with industry participants is making efforts to advance production capacity while vaccine candidates are still in the testing phase, rather than scaling up the capacity after authorization or regulatory approval. The HHS has signed agreements with Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca for investment in manufacturing capacities. The HHS has also signed deal with Emergent BioSolutions for advancing local manufacturing capacity for the potential COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutics. The program is set to devise plans and required infrastructure to support distribution. Operation Warp Speed is expected to ensure availability of necessary resources and materials such as glass vials for vaccine distribution. The HHS and Department of Defense have signed a $138 million agreement with ApiJect for distribution of over 100 million prefilled syringes in the US by the end of 2020 along with the capacity to produce more than 500 million prefilled syringes by 2021. The departments are also making efforts to boost local production of vials. In addition to signing a $204 million deal with Corning to produce 164 million Valor Glass vials per year, the agencies have provided a $143 million contract to SiO2 Materials Science for producing glass-coated plastic container for vaccines and drugs. The US spent around $110 million for procuring syringes and needles for mass vaccination and protect against COVID-19.