COMPANY NEWS
Around the world, sterilization speaks Italian with the excellence of GAMMATOM®. When we talk of Italian excellence in the Como area, we no more talk only about textile industry but also about manufacturing companies in niche sectors. This is the case of Gammatom®, a company in Guanzate specialized in services of gamma ray irradiation intended for scientific, but also for industrial purposes.
Italian quality
Gammatom® grows strategically in national and international markeplaces. The company’s performances are due to cutting-edge technologies, continuous innovation, certified quality, social commitment, respect for environment, real motivation and a management capability able to turn into efficiency the typical Italian fragility in generational transition.
Over time, the company has become able to focus its studies on customization of the service, creating an effective industrial added value. Thanks to its ability to apply the sterilization technology on very thin layers of material, it reduces overdosing, with the consequence of containing chemical-physical alterations of the products. This peculiarity attracts cross-sector industrial customers with the specific interest of perfecting the sterilization properties of their products. Manufacturers of medical devices, raw materials, excipients and finished products in pharmaceutical, veterinary and cosmetic sectors, laboratory and packaging materials: these are the sectors that most require Gammatom® services.
Irradiation, for example, makes it possible to sterilize medical devices, but also cosmetics and most of those products which we come into contact with daily. Among others, patches, gauze or even the commonly used nasal sprays: the latter have a greater need to undergo irradiation for sterilization, since the water allows bacteria to proliferate. When they are not produced in aseptic environments or the saline solution is “fished” from sea, a sterilization / sanitization intervention is even more decisive for the final safety of the product.
Sterilization in the health sector
Sterilization is a vast world which extends not only in the private commercial sector as described, but also and above all in the health sector. Gammatom® sterilizes bags for medical use, blood lines for extracorporeal circulation and related filters, but also the well-known surgical masks we are using during the pandemic. Before being placed on the market, they must have a bacterial load of less than 30 cfu/g as required by Italian National Istitute of Health (Iss). Therefore, irradiation is the most effective sanitization method, since it acts on the finished and packaged product. The products to be sterilized are placed in their final packaging in conveyors, which then enter the irradiation cell.
An example: cosmetics
Let’s go into a little more detail. We mentioned that cosmetics (raw material, semi-finished product, finished product, packaging) need to stay below a certain pollution threshold before they can enter the market, especially when it comes to products intended for children under three years of age. Gamma irradiation is the best technique to act on the product without manipulating it.
Considering the growing trend of preferring more and more natural products with fewer preservatives, such requests are really consistent and come from all over the world. If badly administered, ionizing radiations – such as gamma rays – could interact with the molecules, alter them, and consequently obtain negative effects on the materials. For this reason, Gammatom® considers it important to know the products, their final use, the reference standards, in order to proceed with the correct administration of the irradiation dose. However, the alterations are not all negative. For example, cross-linking of polymers makes them more resistant to chemical and mechanical stress.
Over the years, the company has fully earned the certifications and approvals necessary to participate in tenders for supplies in most countries around the world, even those where the requirements are the strictest. We’d like to highlight the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa) and the Ministry of Health among the national ones.
Success driven by values
Gammatom® is Italian but European for values and beliefs. The company works with an inclusive spirit. In fact, its success is also due to ongoing collaborations with Italian universities and Consortia of studies and adaptation. A defined and clear brand identity highlights the values that drive the success of the company: an important enhancement of human resources, mainly motivated young people, a constant comparison with market references and technological innovation, low turnover and, last but not least, attribution of strategic importance to communication and public relations. This SME has turned corporate communication to popularization, bringing public opinion as well as customers to better understand the radiation, which has always been mistrusted. Just visit the website www.gammatom.it or their social pages to understand the company’s way of understanding business excellence. The claim has now become “knowledge for better understanding”.
The company has also gained approval in the market for other values of non-secondary importance in the exercise of its function. People like it, because despite being an SME, the company is integrated in the territory where it operates, sensing the duty and importance of being there, creating jobs, and making people talk about the company itself and the territory in a constructive way. It pays attention to the solidarity issue: just think about this pandemic period.
During the first lockdown, the most terrible one, the scarcity of masks led Gammatom® to sterilize used ones so that they could be reused by the health and civil protection services, for the sake of community. It will soon give life, together with the Banco di Solidarity of the city of Como, to a non-profit initiative entitled “Let’s radiate hope (Irraggiamo Speranza)”, able, through the raising of funds, to create an afternoon educational accommodation facility for children whose families are in serious trouble.
Why excellence?
In summary, we can therefore answer the question: “Why excellence?”.
Gammatom® is an excellence for many reasons. It is an Italian private SME that has only one national competitor. Moreover, the sector, given its particularity, counts approximately 300 companies around the world. Most competitors are multinational companies, so having managed to conquer a good share of the market is a point of Italian pride. For years, the company has been supplying important industrial and multinational companies, pharmaceutical and cosmetics groups all over the world. It is unique and independent, being one of the few companies in the world to operate independently maintenance, implementation, modification, and management of the plants. Gammatom® also has a dimensional advantage. In fact, not being too large or too small, it can dedicate part of the Team to finding the most suitable solutions requested by the customer. In this way, it’s the supplier who conforms itself to the specific customer needs, and not the opposite.
