2025 marked SEA Vision’s 30th anniversary - an important moment to look decisively ahead!
In 2025, SEA Vision celebrated its 30th anniversary — a milestone that invites us to look boldly toward the future. Yet, before projecting ahead, we paused to revisit our origins.
On September 13, thirty years after SEA Vision was founded, we celebrated our anniversary at the University of Pavia - the place where SEA Vision's story started as a university spin-off in 1995.
The night party, which brought together teams from our international offices, embraced the theme of the cult movie Back to the Future - symbolizing a journey back to our origins to honour who we were, and forward to imagine who we will be. The celebration day also featured an Open Factory initiative at our Headquarters, welcoming colleagues’ families and friends with guided tours, live demos, and a dedicated play area for children.
This year was marked not only by the celebration of three decades of innovation, but also by another milestone: the first edition of the SEA Vision Users Summit.
Held at our Headquarters in Pavia on October 8-9, it welcomed more than 140 pharmaceutical professionals from across the globe. The event featured an ice-breaker networking events, a gala dinner, and interactive sessions featuring customer-driven case studies from Roche, GSK, Pharmasphere and many other.
Attendees joined focus group, workshops and demo sessions, sharing best practices directly with SEA Vision’s R&D and product teams, and helped shape our product roadmap.
Both events shared the same purpose: not simply to celebrate the history or what we have done, but to set the course for what comes next and how we will continue to evolve technologies, practices, and partnerships that matter most for pharmaceutical manufacturing in the decade to come.
1995: from the milestones to the road ahead
These moments of celebration were opportunities to reflect about SEA Vision’s origin story, which is familiar in spirit - even if it began in a farmhouse rather than a garage. 😊
In the mid 90s, when the public internet had just laid the foundations, we took on an ambitious challenge: develop an innovative computer vision system for pharmaceutical blister inspection.
That bold idea became the cornerstone of a journey that transformed us into a global technology partner for pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
That first vision system born in 1995 set a direction we kept until today: to work closely with customers, solving real problems, and always design the right solutions.
“Our philosophy is based on collaboration: working step by step with customers is the real secret of how we create lasting value,” said SEA Vision’s CEO Michele Cei during our Users Summit event.
Looking back helps us to understand how far we've come - and why the next steps matter. Now, let’s turn to the future: explore the technologies shaping tomorrow and see how they evolved throughout this year as we outline the road ahead.
30 Years Forward: innovating where it matters - AI, UX, and digitalization
The next phase of SEA Vision’s growth is about investing where technology truly augments human capability and strengthens productivity.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): We’ve already integrated AI into our pharmaceutical and cosmetics solutions like a-eye Clearance and a-eye Lipstick, and we’re always advancing our algorithms to continuously offer products that give support to safer, consistent, quality decisions.
Michele Cei’s metaphor said during the Users Group event captures this well: “AI tools are like an e-bike for a cyclist: they don’t replace the rider; they help them go further, more consistently, with less fatigue.”
Applied thoughtfully, AI brings safer controls, faster analysis, and better use of resources, without compromising compliance or data integrity. A striking example is
a‑eye Lipstick, our AI-powered inspection system (read this
featured article).
The system uses real-time neural analysis to detect surface defects such as scratches or holes with zero operator training required. Operators simply set the quality threshold and start the process, while AI automatically delivers consistent, reliable results that improve cosmetic manufacturing efficiency and minimize resource waste by reducing the number of defective products rejected.
- Advanced UX/UI: powerful systems must also be intuitive. We are designing interfaces that reduce cognitive load, improve clarity, and shorten the path from insight to action, that is essential especially in case of critical situations on production lines.
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Processes automation and digitalization: our work focuses on fully integrated, easy to use solutions that connect line equipment, quality systems, and enterprise analytics so manufacturers can prevent issues before they occur.
A perfect example is a-eye Clearance, our AI-powered solution that transforms line clearance into a fast, automated, and fully digital process. Designed to ensure machines are perfectly clean and free from any residues, it minimizes risks, accelerates product changeovers, and boosts Overall Equipment Efficiency.
Closer to customers: SEA Vision Germany
Beside technologies, another chapter in our growth story it’s about staying close to the people who use them every day. This year, we continued to expand our global footprint, strengthening technical assistance and enhancing our subsidiaries worldwide.
A key milestone in this journey came in October with the opening of SEA Vision Germany in Frankfurt: a strategic hub in one of Europe’s most advanced and competitive pharmaceutical markets.
Looking ahead to Interpack 2026: solid foundations for the next era
Every milestone we’ve reached, from our origins to today’s innovation, is driven by one vision: shaping smarter, safer, and more sustainable technologies to support pharmaceutical manufacturing.
As 2025 comes to a close, we’re turning insights into action.
The ideas shared with customers during the Users Summit event have fueled our R&D team’s commitment to innovation, and they are already working to shape solutions that truly matter for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
See you at Interpack 2026, where we’ll turn these new ideas into reality, to showcase the next era of pharmaceutical technology.
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