Your source for news, trends and analysis of pharmaceuticals, biologics, medical devices, and nutraceuticals.

Pharmaceutical company packaging OEE's (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) are reported to be among the lowest in the industry. Experience teaches that those feeling the greatest amount of pain are the ones most likely to successfully drive change. Perhaps that is why three giant pharmaceutical companies reported on their efforts in this area at ARC's Forum on Winning Strategies and Best Practices for Global Manufacturers.

Healthcare Packaging and Packaging World, producers of the Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum, and Ipack-Ima Spa, organizers of Pharmintech, announce a cooperative agreement in which Healthcare Packaging and Packaging World will offer promotional support to Ipack-Ima Spa, increasing the visibility for their Italian trade event, Pharmintech, to the U.S. pharmaceutical market. Pharmintech, held every three years in Italy, will next take place May 12th -14th, 2010 in Bologna, Italy.

Nowhere in packaging are flexibility and fast changeover more necessary than in the contract-packaging arena, where multiple customers and their many SKUs are a fact of life. That’s why ease of changeover was a key machine characteristic sought by Brecon Pharmaceuticals recently when it came time to install a new line for blister packing and cartoning of tablets. This fast-growing contract packager, acquired last year by Amerisource Bergen, is located in the UK near the town of Brecon, Wales. Both thermoforming and cold-forming of foil are routinely done on this new and highly versatile blister-pack line.

In this question-and-answer interview, Andrew Billington (shown), operations manager at Brecon Pharmaceuticals in Wales, addresses recent trends in packaging. What is he looking for in new packaging machinery? Billington says: "Quicker changeover and anything that facilitates GMPs [Good Manufacturing Practices] are at the top of the list. Both are especially important for a contract packager because our runs can be quite short. Added changeover pressure can also come from the multiple languages we deal with here in Europe. That’s something our counterparts in the United States do not have to face."

Pharmaceutical innovation and development represents an important aspect of the Latin American economy, with sales of US$24 billion in 2005, up 18.5-percent from 2004. Mexico, Brazil and Argentina are three largest markets in the region, and were responsible for more than 80-percent of the region’s sales in 2005. That’s according to InfoAmericas, a conductor of research and business intelligence across Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2005, the combined annual growth rate of the top seven markets in the region reached 7-percent.

Much like drivers appreciate the performance, handling, and flexibility of the finest sports cars,
Italian contract manufacturer/packager Fine Foods N.T.M. (New Technology Manufacturing) S.p.A opts for similar characteristics in the packaging machinery it specifies. As manufacturers speed their products to market, it increases the deadline pressures on companies such as Fine Foods. In turn, Fine Foods relies on packaging machinery for the flexibility and output it needs to meet the demands of its manufacturer-customers.

Half the 1,200 clinical trials conducted by a dozen of the largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies were conducted offshore in 2005. So says a report from management consultancy A.T. Kearney (www.atkearney.com), "Make Your Move: Taking Clinical Trials to the Best Location." The report cites China as the best bet for outsourcing clinical trials. According to an article posted on DrugResearcher.com http://www.drugresearcher.com/news/ng.asp?id=72702, China was chosen both for cheap labor and facilities, as well as a huge urban patient pool.

Product manufacturers in the pharmaceutical industry are finding it increasingly difficult to drive strong growth, for reasons such as governmental global cost-containment measures such as promoting more economical generic drugs.

Aylward Enterprises appoints Dana S. Waterman as CEO... Hubert H. Keil, managing director and CEO of Uhlmann Packaging Systems, was appointed vice chairman of the Board of Directors of the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council... TCP Reliable acquired the assets of Cryopak Industries... International Business Solutions Alliance, LLC signed an agreement with SATO America, Inc., to offer a more secure method of administering patient care and improved patient safety through SATO's Positive Patient Identification solution... Paxonix and Global Vision have formed a drug packaging partnership to help companies reduce packaging blunders and meet compliance and validation demands... Oracle acquired Tolas Healthcare Packaging... Perfecseal will expand several facilities, including those in New London, WI; Derry, Northern Ireland; and Selangor, Malaysia.

Product manufacturers in the pharmaceutical industry are finding it increasingly difficult to drive strong growth, for reasons such as governmental global cost-containment measures such as promoting more economical generic drugs.

Product manufacturers in the pharmaceutical industry are finding it increasingly difficult to drive strong growth, for reasons such as governmental global cost-containment measures such as promoting more economical generic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is suffering from low R&D productivity, which has fallen to its lowest levels in 20 years, despite companies making record levels of investment in R&D, according to a new report from Datamonitor, an online provider of global data, analysis and forecasting for major industry sectors.

Half the 1,200 clinical trials conducted by a dozen of the largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies were conducted offshore in 2005.

SkinMedica works with structural branding firm to transform its stock packaging look to create structure and design across its product line. “We are a cutting-edge company that has cutting-edge ingredients,” says Josie Norine, product manager, cosmeceuticals, for Carlsbad, CA-based SkinMedica, Inc., maker of pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical dermatology products. “So we want to be the first in the marketplace to make a strategic change as far as packaging, and be a pioneer, but [our packaging was] pretty dated in the marketplace,” for the products, which had been on the market five years.

DESIGN SERVICE

Whippany, NJ-based healthcare contract packager TestPak unveils its child-resistant, senior-friendly line at an October open house. By the end of this year, says TestPak's Bill Eveleth, child-resistant blister packs produced on this new packaging line will be sold commercially in developmental quantities for prescription applications.

Creating compliance-prompting packaging is no easy task. Anderson Packaging uses the following practices to help its pharmaceutical customers.

The need for compliance—or regimen—packaging, as well as packaging that combines two or more drugs, will be acute as the massive baby boomer generation ages and requires more prescription medications.

• The package’s structural design has to be intuitive, easy to open and operate.
• The print needs to be large enough and offer enough visual contrast to be read.
• If the package is a multipack that meters out multiple medications, its contents have to be filled in the correct sequence in the package. Failure in any of these steps could result in packaging that the patient can’t read or open, or—worse—medicines being consumed in a regimen other than what the physician prescribed, or not at all.

“Most of our customers use their own design agency,” notes Justin Schroeder, Anderson Packaging’s marketing and business development director, but with its own in-house package design team. “We can also come up with the design concept,” Schroeder says.

Product types, cost issues, and geography factor into the outsourcing decision

Outsourcing of jobs to contract packagers (CPs) continues to be an important issue for many packagers of healthcare products. “I see continued outsourcing or contract packaging occurring due to the large number of start-up companies,” believes Nancy St. Laurent, senior engineer of sterile facilities and packaging systems, Lockwood Greene. “These are mostly biotech companies, but also pharmaceutical companies.”

She believes that though many CPs may have the equipment to handle existing product packaging, “that might not be the case with toxic drugs that require isolation technology, or where there are other sensitive or controlled drugs. In those cases, companies will probably build their own facility with dedicated equipment.”

Dana M. Guazzo, Ph.D., president, of consulting firm RxPax LLC, adds, “In order to minimize costs, but still produce a quality product, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly relying on the specialized focus that contract packaging firms provide. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always address the lack of expertise available to support companies at the developmental level.”

With nearly 40 years of experience with pharmaceutical and healthcare packagers, contract packager (CP) Anderson Packaging has its finger on the pulse of issues and trends. The following insights come from Justin Schroeder, AP’s marketing and business development manager.