The little-known Italian company making the glass vials for most of the globe’s Covid-19 vaccines just scored a rare feat: a New York Stock Exchange IPO
While Stevanato has been in the headlines for its involvement in the fight against Covid-19—its factories immediately sprang to work producing vials and syringes for vaccines when Italy was still under lockdown in April 2020—vaccines only made up 4% of the company’s revenues in 2020 and 2019. Injectable drug devices such as pens and cartridges accounted for 45% of the company's sales last year, followed by insulin products with 16%.
"We've been in the vaccine space for more than 20 years and the impact of [Covid-19] on our revenue was really minor," says Franco."We're proud of what we have done, but when you produce tens of millions [of pieces] every day, Covid is just one of several businesses." Founded outside Venice in 1949 as a maker of glass bottles for wine and perfume, the firm shifted to glass packaging for the pharmaceutical sector in the early 1970s and later grew to become a leading player in the industry, expanding overseas with new factories in Mexico in 2007 and China in 2012.
“We're going to further invest in research and development to continue to build our pipeline of products, in a more sophisticated way,” he says, holding up a pocket-sized wearable device and a tiny insulin pen to his screen’s camera. “We really believe in this business for the next—we hope—70 years.”