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The task of securing the supply chain and the need to adopt a layered approach using overt and covert security features often seems overwhelming; companies don’t know where to start or what technologies to invest in. That was a key message taken from anti-counterfeiting sessions at the 2008 Americas Technology Summit, an event focusing on brand protection and sustainability held in San Juan, Puerto Rico April 16-17. Americas Technology Summit was sponsored by National Label Co. and MWV .
Noting that some 850 million people around the world are starving, Ipack-Ima CEO Guido Corbella told journalists at an April 25 press briefing during interpack in Dusseldorf, Germany, that an international summit on the subject of world hunger would be part of Ipack-Ima 2009. Supported by the United Nations and the Italian Ministry for Agricultural, Environmental and Food Policies, the proposed summit is aimed at identifying contributions that food production and packaging systems can make in a global effort to address the problem of world hunger.
David Howard (shown), director product protection global brand integrity at Johnson & Johnson, spoke about how to implement a brand-protection program. “The first step in any organization is to know thyself,” Howard advised. “Where are your products made? How do you distribute? Where do you market? Are you local? Regional? Global? Who touches your products?” Without detailed answers to such questions, solutions being considered or the ones already being implemented may be misguided, Howard told the audience at the first Brand-Protection Packaging Forum.
More is going on in RFID apart from news of the decision by the California Board of Pharmacy to delay requirement for e-pedigree tracking of drugs until 2011. RFID analysts from ABI Research commented about RFID developments and drivers in pharmaceutical markets. Analyst Peter Poorman (shown here) says the current state of affairs in RFID is typical to that of many technologies. "After a period of excitement and then a period of disappointment, there follows a period of adoption on an upward ramp. I think we’re at the beginning of that ramp with RFID."
To no one’s great surprise, the California Board of Pharmacy voted March 25 to postpone until 2011 a law requiring that prescription drugs be electronically tracked from the time they leave the manufacturer to the time they reach the pharmacy. First enacted in 2004, the law’s original deadline was January 2007. That deadline was pushed back to January 2009, and now it’s been pushed back again. Included among the reasons for the decision was the concern that implementation might be done poorly.
“It really is about time we got some form of e-pedigree system in place” for drug products, states Bryan Liang, law professor, medical professor, and Vice President of the Partnership for Safe Medicine.
He describes the Partnership for Safe Medicine as “a group of organizations and individuals dedicated to ensuring the safety of the drug supply,” including physician, pharmacist, university, industry, and other professional organizations. The partnership has been heavily involved in advocating for a pedigree system to thwart counterfeiting and diversion, but it wants a workable system.
New Brand Protection Packaging Forum presents strategies for brand owners to protect their products from counterfeiting, diversion, and gray-market distribution, using the latest packaging-related technologies. Summit Publishing Company, publisher of Healthcare Packaging magazine, announces the launch of a new conference for brand owners looking to enhance the security of their products using the latest packaging technologies. Produced by Summit Publishing Company’s flagship magazine, Packaging World, the Brand-Protection Packaging Forum will take place on April 8, 2008 at the Chicago Marriott Schaumburg.
Since incorporating in 1993, North Brunswick, NJ-based Artegraft Inc. has used glass tubes to ship its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved Class III natural collagen vascular grafts to hospitals, clinics, or hospital distributors. But occasional breakage during distribution and the desire to trim costs led the company to make a change this year to Eastman Chemical’s Eastar Copolyester MB002 resin. Eastman worked with O.Berk Co. to make the conversion. As a result of its transition to the tube, which incorporates a flat side, Artegraft is preventing breakage and saving money.
There exists “a great deal of misinformation” when it comes to accelerated aging of medical device packaging, said Curt Larsen of Spartan Design Group, LLC (952/380-1458), at the January 28 MD&M (Medical Design & Manufacturing) West Medical Device Packaging Conference in Anaheim, CA.
A medical device packaging track chaired by Randall Troutman (shown in photo), CPP, Oliver Medical Products, will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28, during the MD&M (Medical Design & Manufacturing) West Conference at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA. MD&M will be co-located with six other manufacturing shows at WestPack.
Pharmaceutical firms seek packaging line improvements to cut costs, biologics present packaging challenges, and medical device growth is driven by aging baby boomers. These treatment advances bode well for the healthcare/life sciences packaging community. Packaging materials need to offer protection from point of manufacture to the “last mile” where healthcare products reach a patient. Packaging materials must provide barriers for moisture, oxygen, light and heat, and they may include overt and/or covert security measures to combat counterfeiting and diversion. Equipment will need to package products more efficiently, be validatable and versatile.
Panelists from McKesson Corp., Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Amerisource Bergen Corp., and Ahold USA recognize that while radio-frequency identification (RFID) offers promise in the pharmaceutical sector, its adoption raises questions. That message came through loud and clear at a recent gathering at the EPC Connection event, held in Chicago in October.
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.
Health Resources LLC of Hueytown, AL, was established in 1995 as a manufacturer of natural health supplements available by mail order. Today, the company offers more than 400 different SKUs, with products that promote a range of health solutions, including joint relief, heart health, reduced inflammation, and better digestion, among many others. In March, the company began running six AirPouch™ Express 3 air-pouch void-fill systems from Automated Packaging Systems to protect its bottles of product during shipment. The switch to air-pouch void-fill systems from loose-fill peanuts increases productivity, lessens mess, and reduces costs.
“With the rapid growth in the biopharmaceutical industry over the past two decades, the number of newly approved biological products has dramatically increased. In 2005, a record 21 biological products received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals, including therapies for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, cancer, and rare genetic disorders,” says the Intl. Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE). With that in mind, the organization has released the ISPE Good Practice Guide: Development of Investigational Therapeutic Biological Products .
The recent rash of news about quality and identity issues involving a broad range of products imported from China has companies and consumers wondering. Counterfeit drugs and other products have recently been the subjects of one or another problem. China has been recognized by companies, the Food & Drug Administration, and other governments as a problematic source of counterfeit drugs for years. So what's the answer, are Chinese products and ingredients immediately suspect?
Using varying technologies makes it more challenging for counterfeiters to keep pace with your packaged pharmaceuticals, suggests Bryan A. Liang of the Institute of Health Law Studies. When it comes to employing anti-counterfeiting technologies, “don’t put your eggs in one basket,” Liang advises. Radio-frequency identification, which he says “the FDA is pushing so hard, has some role, but it is not perfect. If you package two million units a day, which is typical for a wholesaler, even a one-percent error rate or non-read rate is too high. Even the best RFID technology is getting to the 95-percent level, according to some of the studies that just came out last year.”
Attendees of the “Medical Device Distribution Package Testing” conference at MD&M West seemed to appreciate Jan Gates’ description of what medical device management wants from new packages. Those attributes include the following:
Jan Gates, principal packaging engineer at Abbott Vascular, offered the following advice during her presentation, “Medical Device Distribution Package Testing,” during Medical Device & Manufacturing (MD&M) West.
Late last year, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (www.ispe.org) introduced a new packaging Community of Practice (COP). The COP held its first meeting at ISPE's annual meeting in Orlando, FL. Chairing the packaging COP's Steering Committee is Linda McBride, senior director of regulatory affairs for Leawood, KS-based medical firm Enturia, Inc. (formerly Medi-Flex). McBride is a former columnist for Healthcare Packaging.
Attention packagers in the healthcare business: Healthcare has entered a time of profound change. That’s according to TRAX: Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Integrity, a conference held May 3-4 in Baltimore and produced by the Institute for International Research. The conference brought the following ideas to its audience:
When a customer invests in a wheelchair, he or she wants it to be in pristine condition. So when some customers complained about nicks, scratches or dents on these medical devices, Longmont, CO-based manufacturer Sunrise Medical sought a cure. The occasional damage during shipping was attributable to the kraft paper Sunrise Medical had used to wrap metal wheelchair components such as arm rests or leg rests.
San Juan’s Convention Center hosted the Feb. 1-2, 2007 Interphex Puerto Rico conference, with a keynote presentation delivered by Maridalia Torres, director of the San Juan district Food and Drug Administration office. One of the event’s highlights was a session focusing on Packaging End-of-Line Solutions, or PELS. It involves OEMs and controls suppliers working together to assist manufacturers of life science products.
Jan Gates, principal packaging engineer at Abbott Vascular, offered the following advice during her presentation, "Medical Device Distribution Package Testing," during the Medical Device & Manufacturing (MD&M) West show.
Jan Gates, principal packaging engineer at Abbott Vascular, offered the following advice during her presentation, “Medical Device Distribution Package Testing,” during the Medical Device & Manufacturing MD&M West show.
A report from Sept. 25-28's 4th Annual Cold Chain Distribution for Pharmaceuticals forum focusing on temperature-controlled packaging, shipping, distribution, and storage for pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals.
China's cold chain infrastructure is still fragmented, under-funded, and scrambling to keep up with soaring demand, reports the China Supply Chain Council.
RN Karen Kiefer discussed the impact packaging has on purchasing decisions at Texas Health Resources (THR) during HealthPack 2006.
Healthcare continues to change dramatically for professionals at THR, a faith-based, nonprofit U.S. healthcare system that includes 13 hospitals and more than 2,400 licensed beds and serves patients in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. As director, operating room supply chain management, Kiefer explained some of the key packaging challenges THR faces in her presentation, “The Impact of Packaging on Purchase Decisions.” They include the following:
The two companies recently signed multi-year commercial agreements for the temperature-controlled packaging and cold chain market in North America. TCP will serve as the exclusive reseller and distributor of ATP’s cold chain services and monitoring solutions in the United States. ATP will be the exclusive agent of TCP’s temperature-controlled packaging solutions in Canada. The companies also agreed to install in Laval, Quebec, Canada, a joint-venture laboratory for all design and testing activities related to temperature-controlled and cold chain packaging in Canada.
Jan Gates, senior packaging engineer at medical products maker Guidant Corp., presented the following insights at MD&M West.
• Know your distribution system. Companies can make a great product, but may not know the product’s [packaging and distribution] needs. It’s imperative to get the device to customers safely.
• Take advantage of shipping tests, such as those developed by UPS and FedEx. They can save you money.
• Use indicators for temperature-sensitive devices. Distribution companies don’t always tell you about extreme temperature conditions or how long a package was exposed to them.
• A box is not just a box. There have been big changes with corrugated in the past 20 years.
• Project your corrugated needs years in advance so suppliers can grow the trees.
• Considerable money can be saved simply by changing the type of dunnage that’s used for product protection in a shipping case.
• Know the strength of board you’ll need, all the dimensions, how flaps will fold, how boxes will stack, and watch for over- or under-hang on the pallet. You’ll pay more than you need to if the box isn’t right.
• Engineers need to understand regulatory issues and graphics design.
• Understand dimensional charges pertaining to package weight and volume. By making a change to the length or width of the box, it can affect shipping cost.
• When it comes to distribution regulations, the United States passes regulation and gives companies time to comply, whereas Europe expects regulations to be adhered to immediately.
