Drug Sealer DIR Raises $10M From Pfizer

December 28, 2016 | DIR Technologies, which is developing quality control devices for the pharmaceutical industry, will receive a $10 million investment from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer under a strategic cooperation agreement. DIR’s products inform users whether a small bottle or package of drugs is properly sealed when it leaves the factory. The usual method of checking this is to sample several bottles or packages and manually examine the effectiveness of their sealing. Scanning a sample, however, does not detect all defective products. A means of scanning without human contact for each and every item is therefore needed. Last April, DIR signed a five-year agreement with Pfizer to apply its method to several of Pfizer’s production lines. It appears that the pilot was a success, leading to the current investment. Founded in 2009, DIR launched its products in 2013. In the future, it hopes to apply its technology to testing non-pharmaceutical products that require complete sealing, such as food and toiletries.