Fuel cell vehicles are considered a potential solution in the battle against climate change. The Optima Group has now developed machine solutions to increase the production capacity of fuel cells. As a result, the required production steps – coating, cutting, assembling the individual layers, and stacking – have been automated. This establishes the Schwaebisch Hall-based family-owned Group as a leading supplier of complete solutions, offering fuel cell production worldwide.

The Optima Group will present its solutions for the consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and medical technology industries at four trade shows in the USA. The company is participating at Pack Expo and Healthcare Packaging Expo in Las Vegas, held at the same time from September 27 to 29. Interphex in New York and ICE in Orlando are also bringing a sense of normality back to trade show operations between October 19 and 21.

In late 2020, the Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus in Stuttgart, the Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg and the Pharma Division of the Schwaebisch Hall-based special machine manufacturer Optima launched an innovative project called "ProCell for Patient". The strategic partnership aims to develop a production system for CAR-T cell therapies.

Optima Automation has recently completed a comprehensive system to assemble blood collection tubes, including the dosing of additives. This consists of an OPTIMA BCT-200 processing line and an OPTIMA BCA-200 assembly machine. It was not possible to perform the Eastern European customer's Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) with them being present at Optima due to the pandemic. The machine acceptance was carried out online and streamed live for the customer to avoid any risk of delaying the project.

The Optima Group is building another CSPE Center at its headquarters in Schwaebisch Hall, to be used for the assembly and comprehensive commissioning of pharmaceutical filling lines. This will expand the production area by around 46,000 square feet (4,300 square meters) and also provide new office space. At Optima Pharma's site in Gladenbach-Mornshausen (Hesse, Germany), the existing assembly hall for freeze-drying systems is being expanded by 50 percent. The investment is due to the high volume of orders received and ongoing developments in the Optima Group’s Pharma Division.

The new INTISO integrated isolator from Metall+Plastic offers complete isolator protection for filling and sealing processes with a massive reduction in outlay. What sets the new isolator design apart is the elimination of an HVAC unit and the relocation of the cooling and ventilation units from the technical floor to the isolator plenum.