Reliable Vacuum Solutions for the Pharmaceutical Industry

Busch provides a complete technology range tailored to these requirements:

With a portfolio spanning rotary vane, dry claw and screw vacuum pumps as well as compact vacuum pump units, Busch ensures packaging processes remain clean, reliable, and audit-ready.

Many critical processes in life sciences cannot be carried out reliably at atmospheric pressure. Vacuum lowers the pressure, which reduces boiling points for gentle drying of heat-sensitive APIs and biologics, supports solvent recovery, and prevents oxidation or contamination. Vacuum also ensures stable conditions for sterile filtration, freeze drying, pharmaceutical reactors, and packaging integrity testing. In all these various applications, vacuum helps improve product quality, extend shelf life, and ensure safer medicines for patients.

Vacuum pumps in pharma must withstand demanding process conditions. The choice of technology depends on factors such as process temperature, solvent load, energy efficiency, waste treatment, investment cost, and long-term reliability.

There is no universal “best” vacuum pump. The selection always depends on the specific application. Among the factors to consider is the operating principle - whether the system runs dry or uses an operating fluid:

Busch develops tailor-made vacuum systems using a structured six-step approach. It begins with consultation and analysis to understand your process, followed by detailed design and quoting. Once approved, the system is built with the right components, such as condensers, separators, or control units, and installed with training for your team.

Our global service experts then ensure long-term reliability, compliance, and customer satisfaction. Systems can be built with special materials and are supplied with full documentation to meet regulatory standards.

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Vacuum pumps do not fall under GMP regulation, since they remove air/vapor rather than introducing material into the product. However, Busch vacuum systems are engineered to support GMP-friendly operations by preventing backstreaming, installing suitable filters/traps, and delivering full documentation. These features assist in maintaining clean, controlled environments that support product quality and facilitate regulatory compliance.

Vacuum Diagnostics from Busch gives you a detailed on-site analysis of your existing vacuum supply. Our experts measure system condition, energy use, and process requirements, then provide a clear report with concrete recommendations. This helps you uncover hidden inefficiencies, extend equipment lifetime, and ensure that your vacuum system continues to support the stable conditions required for pharmaceutical production. The value can be in lower operating costs, improved reliability, and full transparency about whether the current setup is still the right fit.

Vacuum Diagnostics not only highlights optimization potential but also guides you toward solutions that improve process stability and product quality. You gain a fact-based basis for investment decisions and confidence that your system will continue to meet production demands.

Vacuum ensures sterile filling, airtight sealing, and safe handling in blister packs, vials, and syringes. It prevents contamination, protects product stability, and supports regulatory compliance. Busch brings unique expertise here: as the global market leader in food packaging and other industries, we can deliver proven reliability, high efficiency, and consistent integrity at an industrial scale.

CCIT verifies that primary packaging, such as vials, syringes, ampules, and blister packaging, remains airtight and sterile. Deterministic methods, such as helium leak detection, vacuum decay, or mass extraction, detect even the smallest leaks that could compromise product quality or patient safety.

For pharmaceutical manufacturers, CCIT is a key element of pharmaceutical compliance. The EU GMP Annex 1 explicitly requires the use of deterministic test methods to demonstrate container closure integrity. Pfeiffer provides these proven technologies, ensuring that packaging integrity is safeguarded and regulatory expectations are met.

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Annex 1 of the EU GMP sets clear expectations for container closure integrity in sterile manufacturing. Fusion-sealed containers (such as ampules or BFS products) must undergo 100 % integrity testing. For other packaging, validated and scientifically justified CCIT methods are required, supported by a statistically sound sampling plan. Visual inspection alone, like with the blue dye test, is not acceptable. The guideline emphasizes deterministic methods like helium leak detection or vacuum decay, as they deliver objective, reproducible results. CCIT must be applied across the product life cycle to safeguard sterility and patient safety.

The freeze drying process (lyophilization) protects heat-sensitive pharmaceuticals such as vaccines, antibiotics, and biologics by removing water under vacuum. It relies on the primary drying phase (ice removal through the sublimation process) and the secondary drying phase (elimination of bound moisture) to achieve long-term stability.

Busch delivers value by providing vacuum systems that ensure stable conditions at the right temperature and pressure, oil-free options to avoid contamination, and energy-efficient booster combinations. For advanced assurance, integrated residual gas analysis (RGA) can detect silicone oil leaks from cooling lines, preventing contamination of pharmaceutical products and securing batch integrity.

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In drug development and pharmaceutical research, laboratory processes rely on stable vacuum conditions for applications such as mass spectrometry, glove boxes, freeze drying, and quality control testing. Reliable vacuum is essential to ensure reproducible results, safeguard sterility, and support compliance throughout the research pipeline.

For these needs, Busch and Pfeiffer provide a wide range of laboratory vacuum pumps. Dry vacuum pumps offer clean operation with minimal maintenance and low risk of contamination, while vacuum pumps with operating fluids can handle higher vapor loads when required. Designed for quiet operation and low vibration, they are well-suited for sensitive laboratory instruments and pilot plants, helping researchers achieve consistent results and smooth scale-up into production.

Explore more vacuum solutions from Pfeiffer for laboratory applications.