Everything that your dietary supplement needs.

NovaLabs provides full-service contract manufacturing and product development for everyone who sees more potential in their own product, be it powders or capsules. This one-stop shop philosophy is expressed by the 360° support the Company guarantees to its customers: from product development to made-to-order production, from process optimization to marketing. “An idea is just not enough to successfully put dietary supplements on the market”, says David Schweiger, CEO at NovaLabs. “It takes knowledge, understanding, flexibility, the right raw materials, sufficient production capacity, and time. However, more than anything else you need partners, and people that you like to collaborate with. Our most important principles are workflows with complete transparency, high speed, and extensive expertise along with personal service. Novalabs meets all these requirements and more. We are the supplement to dietary supplements”. NovaLabs can produce small to large quantities, depending on what is needed. Large customers established on the market and newcomers to the world of dietary supplements come to NovaLabs when they want to put a product on the market or would like to have it produced dependably. Starting with the customer’s product idea, NovaLabs do everything under one roof from raw material selection to delivery. The Company covers the entire manufacturing process, transposing ideas into functioning formulas and making them into popular products. Everything is produced in-house in Graz, Austria. In addition, NovaLabs can fine-tune existing formulations or manufacture innovative products customized to new needs. Together with the customers, the Company creates products that fit perfectly to their range of products and strategy. In this context, the new Practica capsule filler reinforces the automation of production processes at NovaLabs, paving the way for new development opportunities and new commercial scenarios to meet the multi-faceted requirements of the nutraceutical market. 

Which was the most restrictive requirement for the new capsule filler you were looking for?

In the nutraceutical market, the most restrictive factor is usually the budget. It is certainly true that the quality requirements in this business are moving more and more in direction of the pharmaceutical market, but the price of the final product on the market does not yet reflect this situation. It is not always easy to bring this factor into balance when purchasing pharmaceutical machines. 

What was your main reasons for choosing Practica capsule filler?

Considering the speed class of the machine, the hallmarks of Practica capsule filler are its accessible design combined with its ability to manage difficult-to-handle powders. As contract manufacturers in our industry, we face a lot of diverse formulations and, therefore, the powder types must run fast.
Dosing tests and powder optimizations over several weeks are not possible in our market. For this reason, it is necessary for the capsule filler to be fast and, with all the flexibility, still run with the maximum possible accuracy. Of course, first-class spare parts availability and on-site support at short notice were also decisive reasons for choosing IMA.

Which three main criteria do you appreciate the most in the machine?

Simple, reliable and effective, Practica is the perfect answer to our wide variety of straightforward capsule filling requirements. The machine is a competitive solution in terms of speed, precision and ease of use and guarantees high reliability in processing granules, powder and pellets. The machine is equipped with a statistic weight checking unit for production monitoring that, combined with self-adjustment, allows to automatically keep the production within the parameters set by the operator. Remarkable for its practicality, Practica stands out for its excellent accessibility. Its smart design leads to great accessibility: straightforward operations, easy inspection and cleaning are the major benefits for the operators.

How was the collaboration with IMA?

It was not our first project with IMA, but the first one with IMA Active. From the first contact during a trade fair first, throughout the visit to IMA Active plant to test the machine, until the final FAT, we were always very warmly welcomed and competently supported by the IMA Active team.

Any future project?

Together with IMA Active, we are already planning the expansion of our capsule filling capacities in the first quarter of 2024. There are still some other systems on our whish list, fortunately available somewhere else in the IMA universe.