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

Watson Laboratories’ Glipizide Key.In package won the 2007 Compliance Package of the Year award from the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council . The package, a unique carded wallet, is manufactured by Nosco for Watson Laboratories. The pack functions with a removable key card that must be inserted into a lock in order to access the blisters within.

Two pharmaceuticals and one medical device package were among those to win the Institute of Packaging Professionals’ 2007 AmeriStar Awards. In the Pharmaceutical and Drug category, Mylan Pharmaceuticals chose MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging’s Shellpak (shown) to answer Wal-Mart's challenge to its generic prescription drug producers to provide cost-effective, patient-adherence packaging.

The holographic industry is working hard to destroy the myth that sophisticated holograms cannot be counterfeited; anything can be counterfeited. The question is how well, and this is where the real value of holograms can be appreciated. The evolving anti-counterfeiting role of holograms lies in their ability to combine authentication with detection--and this is why enlightened pharmaceuticals companies and enforcement agencies continue to make them an integral part of their anti-counterfeiting strategies.

Brand managers of healthcare products are beginning to use words like “efficacy” when discussing packaging options for their products—a sign that they view packaging as more than a carrier of the product. In the muscle pain-relief aisle, packaging reflects this elevated status for Mentholatum Co. Inc.’s WellPatch brand of treatment patches. Competition in the pain-relief category is increasing, and it created the need for a package redesign for WellPatch.

A two-year-old boy is rushed to a Kwale hospital in Kenya’s Coast Province. The clinical officer at the health facility diagnoses febrile convulsions and quickly rushes to the hospital’s pharmacy for a dose of medicine that will ease the boy’s suffering. But nothing happens, so the boy is given additional doses but still the boy does not respond. Finally, he dies. Only later, upon investigation, is it discovered that the drug had no active ingredients. The drug was a fake. Read how health officials and drug manufacturers are developing ways to battle counterfeiting in an effort to keep this African nation from becoming what some would call “a healthcare catastrophe.”

Packaged wet wipes give hospital personnel and patients a weapon to fight the spread of bacteria. Sustainable packaging of these wipes could be next. ...The healthcare community is understandably concerned with the spread of diseases such as MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), or staph, and C. Diff (Clostridium Difficile), a diarrheal disease. One way to combat such diseases, either in a medical facility or at home, is through hygiene, which may include the use of specialized wet wipes, contract-manufactured and packaged by Fredonia, WI-based Guy & O’Neill, Inc. for a wide range of customers and applications.

A cloud of uncertainty hangs over the pharmaceutical industry in Puerto Rico following the expiration of tax incentives from Section 936 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Could emerging combinations of biopharmaceuticals and medical devices provide a silver lining? A report from Interphex Puerto Rico.

Packaging a blockbuster prescription drug such as AstraZeneca’s Nexium blister- and wallet-packs (shown in photo) demands efficiency. At AstraZeneca’s plant in Södertälje, Sweden, nine robotic cells, featuring a mix of 16 robots from ABB Robotics and other suppliers, is providing that efficiency during case packing and palletizing on multiple packaging lines.

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.

Synchronized lines, rather than individual pieces of equipment, will be a focus of pharmaceutical manufacturers, predicts PMMI’s Ben Miyares. In this exclusive Q&A interview with Healthcare Packaging, Miyares addresses multiple healthcare packaging-related issues, including mechatronics and robotics, which, he says, "have the potential to transform the development of packaging equipment." He also looks at sustainability, packaging equipment purchase considerations, E-machinery, and counterfeiting topics.

Packaging plays an important role in every category but nowhere is it more important than in over-the-counter products whose impact on a consumer’s health and well-being occurs at a very personal level. Issues such as selecting the correct product at the shelf, understanding correct dosing, dispensing the correct amount of product, storing it and protecting it while consumers are “on-the-go” underscores packaging’s importance. New developments occur continuously. Monitoring them and aligning them with your product and consumer needs will substantially increase the value of your brand and add to your company’s top-line sales and bottom-line profit growth.

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.

In the next decade, counterfeit drugs will double, according to Alistair Dand, marketing manager for LGR Emballages, a supplier of folding cartons in France. Currently, one out of every two drugs bought on the internet is a fake. “Counterfeiters are benefiting in developed countries from our desire for lifestyle drugs," said Dand, "and in developing countries from the need for life-saving drugs." Dand offered these remarks February 7, 2008, at Pharmapack in Paris.

In addition to its shrink-sleeved canister format launched in early 2007 and sold at Costco, San Francisco, CA-based Bevology also developed a tube format for its effervescent Zenergize supplements. Introduced in September 2007 and sold in cartons, the products retail in seven varieties at Whole Foods, Walgreens, and Vitamin Shoppe stores nationally and in Los Angeles-area Longs and Ralphs stores. Each is priced at $6.99 for one variety of 10 all-natural servings.

Validating heat sealers, dye penetration and burst tests, the consequences of designing packaging late in the product design process, and sterilization issues are among the topics that Jacob Kearns has answered in the past year on his "Medical Device Blog." Kearns is an engineer for a medical device company. Differing points of view may be shared on this blog.

In March 2007, to repackage its well-established “Skinlogics Lip Apeel” lip line peel/lip balm product, Carrollton TX-based BeautiControl, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Tupperware Brands, opted for injection-molded styrene acrylonitrile/polypropylene jars with stacked-component construction, custom-manufactured by TricorBraun .

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.

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.

A new law that was widely described as strengthening Food and Drug Administration powers over approved drugs contains a spotlight on packaging that, among other things, will soon require unique numbering of individual packages of prescription drug products. In the FDA Amendments Act of 2007, little-noticed section 913 adds a new section to the law called "Pharmaceutical Security" that calls for federal government officials to "develop standards and validate effective technologies" to secure the drug supply chain against "counterfeit, diverted, subpotent, substandard, adulterated, misbranded, or expired drugs."

A nurse/doctor forum convened by Rollprint earlier in the year served as the catalyst for the company’s new Duet functional peelable chevron header pouch. Designed to ease pouch access and improve aseptic presentation, the new-generation pouch was developed after operating room physicians and nurses from the Austin, TX, area participated in a packaging focus group. The intent was to glean insight into the pros and cons of existing sterile medical packaging and to better understand what innovative design improvements would help healthcare workers better perform their jobs.

Packaging Hall of Fame inductee Edward J. Bauer, investigative reporter and award-winning author Katherine Eban, and Joint Equipment Transition Team (JETT) Chairman Jim John are among the speakers scheduled to make presentations at the upcoming Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum (PPF) 2008. Produced by Healthcare Packaging and Packaging World magazines, the event will be held on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia, the same venue that hosted the initial PPF March 29, 2007.

If ex-lifeguard Christine Doolittle has her way, patients who are unconscious or not breathing may one day be rescued thanks in part to an easy-to-access prefilled syringe pack she developed as a prototype last year while earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Industrial Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, GA. The package is not being sold commercially. The prototype was developed as part of a Design Initiative between SCAD and Eastman.

A polypropylene container that includes a no dip-tube dispensing pump provides waste-free dispensing and fits within a reusable outer SAN container, helping Malibu Wellness, Inc. market its EC Mode skin-care products to salons, spas, and dermatologists. Malibu continues to take pride in staying in front of the curve when it comes to healthy skin care. So it's no surprise that the company is pioneering a reusable pack in the U.S. cosmeceutical market just when sustainable packaging has become so prominent.

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.

At this year’s Interphex conference and exhibition event in New York, the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council (HCPC) selected its 2006 Compliance Package of the Year awards. The PocketPak (shown) earned package of the year honors. Reportedly used in England by Boots Pharmacies, PocketPak uses a patented design developed by Burgopak and Structural Graphics.

Three trends are emerging that warrant more attention. One is sustainability, which is all the rage in the general packaging press. But with all the demands already placed on a pharmaceutical or medical device package, do we have to be earth-friendly too?

When Sageant, LLC, Bozeman, MT, a health supplement and vitamin producer, wanted to re-brand and refresh its product image, the company sought the assistance of branding and design agency Maddocks & Co. In the process of designing new labels and recommending PVC shrink-sleeve label materials for the various liquid and solid Sageant products in assorted container sizes and shapes, Maddocks also enlisted the digital printing expertise of CL&D Digital to execute the shrink-sleeve label printing. The 2-mil PVC shrink-sleeve label material, manufactured by Klockner Pentaplast , is digitally printed by CL&D using a four-color process.

The Freedonia Group (www.freedoniagroup.com) forecasts that sales demand for high-visibility packaging in the pharmaceutical and medical markets will advance 7.9% annually to $1.9 billion by 2010.

Schering-Plough has repositioned its Coricidin brand as the preferred choice for cold sufferers with high blood pressure, and packaging supports the strategy.

A PET bottle and shrink-sleeve label help start-up company DTK launch a relief drink for “the day after” called AH+. AH+ (After Hours+) is an appropriate name for a vitamin-fortified water designed to help relieve hangover symptoms associated with drinking too much alcohol. Introduced last July, the three 16.9-oz AH+ varieties are filled into 23-g injection-blown PET bottles provided by O.Berk.

Hosted by Healthcare Packaging and Packaging World magazines, the first Pharmaceutical Packaging Forum featured speakers from Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Schering-Plough, AstraZeneca, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Healthcare Users Group. More than 175 people packed The Rittenhouse Hotel in Philadelphia for the March 29 event. The Forum’s exhibiting sponsors included Alcoa, Design Group, Bilcare, Rexroth Bosch Group, Intellitech, Parsec, Pharmintech, Uhlmann, United Silicone, and ZPI.

Kerr Dental wanted to improve package durability and functionality for its OptiDisc Finishing and Polishing Disc Set, used by dentists. Plastic vacuum-formed lids the company was using in conjunction with an unspecified grade of board tray created a risk of contamination and the possibility of polishing discs falling from the tray. Contaminated discs had to be discarded. Kerr Dental answered this challenge by...

Beware drug abusers and diverters: Attempts to tamper with this pill container will result in the disintegration of its contents in a puff of smoke... It may sound like a far-fetched idea, but prototypes of the PillSafe, a drug container that causes pills to disintegrate if the unit is tampered with, are being tested at the University of Kentucky Center for Manufacturing. Anthony McEldowney, M.D., and Robert Muncy, D.M.D, formed R.A.M.M. LLC and collaborated with the university to develop a device that would reduce the abuse and diversion of highly addictive Schedule II narcotics.

In January, Fever Beverage USA introduced 14-oz Fever Original and Fever Low Calorie stimulation beverages in aluminum bottles supplied by distributor Zuckerman Honickman. CCL Container manufactures the bottles and uses lithography as the decorating process. Silganmakes the 38-mm metal screw cap that tops the bottle.

Drug delivery systems and patient-friendly packaging could create a new kind of branded intellectual property that might be more defensible than drug patents. That's according to Eric Park of Ziba, a design consultancy in "Pharmaceuticals, The Ailing Drug Industry." He was quoted in an article published in the January 25, 2007, issue of the Economist.

An example of such package design cited in the article is GlaxoSmithKline's Advair, an asthma therapy packaged in "an innovative, multi-use inhaler that is breath-activated and easier to use." Last October, GSK announced that it had "submitted a supplemental new drug application to the Food and Drug Administration to expand labeling for" its Advair Diskus fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder in the U.S.

Expiring patents on blockbuster drugs challenges the pharmaceutical industry. The Economist's article pointed out Pfizer's recent announcement that it will cut some 10,000 jobs globally, including five research centers and several manufacturing sites. "When patents on blockbusters like Lipitor run out, generic compet