LEBANON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 3, 2026--
SCHOTT Pharma, a pioneer in drug containment solutions and delivery systems, has inaugurated new production lines for both standard and sterile ready-to-use (RTU) glass vials designed to store a wide range of drugs – from biologics and other complex injectable therapies to vaccines and emergency room medications. The new capabilities feature state-of-the-art technology for efficient manufacturing and optimized output. The over 60 million USD investment was largely funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to strengthen the resilience of the U.S. pharmaceutical supply chain and ensure reliable domestic production of critical primary packaging. The expansion significantly increases the site’s annual production capacity for core vials, while more than tripling local capacity for high-value solutions.
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Madison Colaco (South Region Field Director at Congressman Meuser’s Office), John Schlegel (Pennsylvania State Representative), Hakan Gerdan (Plant Manager, SCHOTT Pharma USA), Logan Hoover (South Central PA Regional Manager to Senator McCormick), Christopher Cassidy (President of SCHOTT Pharma USA), Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Dr. Gary Disbrow (Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of BARDA), Rick Siger (Secretary, PA Department of Community and Economic Development), and Lebanon County Commissioners Jo Ellen Litz and Michael Kuhn. (Credit: SCHOTT Pharma)
“The expansion contributes to SCHOTT Pharma’s long-term global growth strategy, with a strong local-for-local presence in the U.S. and scaled manufacturing capacity for high-value solutions that address key trends in the pharmaceutical industry, such as biologic medications and novel drug formulations,” says Christian Mias, CEO of SCHOTT Pharma.
Pushing high-value solutions in the U.S.
In addition to installing a significant number of new high-end converting lines for core borosilicate glass vials, the expansion in Lebanon included major infrastructure modernization, line upgrades, and new state-of-the-art technology to increase the capacity for high-value solutions. These include the RTU vial platform adaptiQ ® and EVERIC ® pure vials.
“We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for supporting the expansion of our U.S.-based manufacturing footprint. With its new advanced equipment, our site in Lebanon, Pennsylvania is strengthening supply chain resilience in the U.S. and ensuring the availability of primary packaging for critical life-saving therapies for patients throughout our nation,” says Christopher Cassidy, President SCHOTT Pharma USA.
The Lebanon, PA site is one of only two SCHOTT Pharma locations worldwide capable of manufacturing EVERIC ® pure vials, which feature high chemical durability, a homogeneous inner surface, and tight dimensional tolerances to ensure high drug stability throughout its shelf life. It is also the only SCHOTT Pharma site producing adaptiQ ® pre‑washed, pre‑sterilized RTU vials, supplying these high performance containers across the U.S. and globally.
Addressing key pharma trends
Specialty vials, which are part of SCHOTT Pharma’s high-value solutions portfolio, play a critical role in storing a wide range of sensitive medications. These include sensitive biologics and biosimilars, emergency medications, and vaccines. The vials are also used for innovative drugs or therapies that require lyophilization to remain stable – such as antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) for targeted cancer treatments.
In RTU configuration, SCHOTT Pharma’s vials also support the industry’s manufacturing shift toward ready-to-use primary packaging. This approach enables faster, more flexible, and more efficient drug filling for pharmaceutical companies and contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs), while simultaneously enhancing drug safety and simplifying regulatory compliance.
Work reported in this press release was supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) as part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) under award number IDSEP230073.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of HHS or ASPR.
About SCHOTT Pharma
Human health matters. That is why SCHOTT Pharma designs containment solutions grounded in science to ensure that medications are safe and easy to use for people around the world. Every minute, more than 30,000 people receive an injection packed in a SCHOTT Pharma product. The portfolio comprises drug containment solutions and delivery systems for injectable drugs ranging from prefillable glass and polymer syringes to cartridges, vials, and ampoules. Every day, a team of around 4,800 people from over 65 nations works at SCHOTT Pharma to contribute to global health. The company is represented in all main pharmaceutical hubs with 17 manufacturing sites in Europe, North and South America, and Asia. With over 1,000 patents and technologies developed in-house and a state-of-the-art R&D center in Switzerland, the company is focused on developing innovations for the future. Currently, SCHOTT Pharma has over 1,800 customers including the top 30 leading pharma manufacturers for injectable drugs and generated revenue of EUR 986 million in the fiscal year 2025. SCHOTT Pharma AG & Co. KGaA is headquartered in Mainz, Germany and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange as part of the SDAX. It is majority owned by SCHOTT AG, which is owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation. In light of this spirit, SCHOTT Pharma is committed to sustainable development for society and the environment. Further information at www.schott-pharma.com
SCHOTT Pharma’s core vials are critical primary packaging for vaccines and other life-saving drugs. (Credit: SCHOTT Pharma, Oana Szekely)
BEIRUT (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “crazy” in a phone call that involved expletives, saying he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel’s fighting with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon was holding back peace talks with Iran.
But even as the U.S. president conceded the tensions in an interview released Wednesday, he insisted that his relationship with Netanyahu was solid and that they connected, in part, because they are both “wartime” leaders.
“We’ve worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One.”
In an interview on the American business-news channel CNBC, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump sometimes have “tactical disagreements” but have “common goals” and “agree on the main things.”
“He respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” the prime minister said.
The president's comments about the Monday call offered a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty threaten Republican prospects in the midterm elections and hamper global commerce.
Talks have dragged on for weeks as mediators seek to extend a fragile ceasefire into a more enduring truce. The negotiations are further strained by Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed militia group in Lebanon. The conflicts have become increasingly intertwined as Iran insists that any potential truce in the war there must also quell the fighting in Lebanon.
Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the Iran conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for shipments of oil and natural gas.
“I don’t know. I mean, I think it could be (closed through Labor Day), but I think it’s unlikely. I think that we’ll have it. I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly,” Trump said.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his late father, is “involved” in peace talks, Trump added.
“They have a lot of respect for him,” the president said in the interview.
Trump said that Khamenei is not doing well due to wounds sustained in an airstrike, but “they say he’s giving approval because that’s the way it has been for a long, long time." Khamenei's father was killed in an airstrike when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February.
Meanwhile in the Persian Gulf region, Kuwait briefly shut its main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones hit a passenger terminal building, killing one person and wounding dozens. It was the latest in the back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested the ceasefire.
The strike again brought home the risks to residents and travelers in Gulf countries that had considered themselves relative safe havens before the war, now in its fourth month.
The path toward a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remained unclear as hostilities continued in Lebanon.
An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut, hours before the second day of talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington were set to take place. The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed.
Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement in which Israel would not strike Beirut's southern suburbs and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel.
The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.
Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before the Israeli military ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns.
Not long after the strike on Khaldeh, the Israeli military said it intercepted what it called a hostile aircraft coming from southern Lebanon, but it did not immediately blame Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not claimed a cross-border attack since the agreement.
Israeli strikes over southern Lebanon continued, especially in and around the battered cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh. Two overnight strikes near Tyre, a coastal city, killed four Syrians and two Palestinians.
Israel warned the Christian neighborhoods in Tyre that Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas in recent days because they were spared from the aerial bombardment along the Mediterranean coast.
After the warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area.
Israel launched an invasion of southern Lebanon days after the latest war was sparked on March 2, when Iran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets toward northern Israel in solidarity with Iran. Israeli troops have pushed deeper into Lebanon over the past week, as Hezbollah continues to claim rocket and drone attacks.
The latest round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon and displaced 1.2 million people. According to Netanyahu’s office, at least 27 Israeli soldiers and a defense contractor have been killed in or near southern Lebanon. Two civilians have also been killed in northern Israel.
Many residents of southern Lebanon remained in villages near the hostilities or returned to areas where strikes occurred after evacuation warnings.
The Al-Abdallah family returned to their home in Marwanieyh, which they left because they thought the village was unsafe following earlier strikes. A day later, two rockets hit the home, bringing down the three-story building and killing six family members, said the brother of Hassan Al-Abdallah, who was killed.
Ahmed Al-Abdallah, 13, was thrown away from the building by the force of the blasts and was the only member of his family to survive. His uncle, Eissa Al-Abdallah, said the boy has two broken legs and shrapnel wounds all over his body.
“What good is talking now? They are gone, and nothing will bring them back,” the uncle told The Associated Press in a phone call Tuesday. “This land costs blood.”
Boak reported from Washington.
This version has been updated to correct that the Iran war began at the end of February, not March.
United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, second from left, is joined by third from left: State Department Chief of Staff Dan Holler, Sr., State Department Counselor and Director, Office of Policy Planning Michael A. Needham and United States Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, as they meet with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamadeh, at the State Department, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Israeli troops gather on the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A nurse treats an injured man at the damaged Jabal Amel Hospital, following Monday's Israeli airstrike that was hit a nearby building, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A man removes debris of a building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Rescue workers use an excavator, as they search for victims under the rubble of a building that was hit Monday in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, left, is joined by second from left: State Department Chief of Staff Dan Holler, Sr., State Department Counselor and Director, Office of Policy Planning Michael A. Needham and United States Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, as they meet with Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the United States Nada Hamadeh, at the State Department, Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Burj al-Shamali village near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
