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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.
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.
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.
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.”
• Biopharmaceutical and biomedical technologies and treatments will be advanced in large part by developing countries. Although only 5% to 7% of biological products now in clinical development will actually make it to the market, they will play an important role as the life sciences industry begins to develop custom solutions for individual patients rather than focusing exclusively on the larger market. But such treatments will require a change in packaging and processing methods, as well as regulatory procedures.
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.
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.
According to a report posted on DrugResearcher.com, the Government Accounting Office has warned the pharmaceutical industry that although their investment in research and development has increased 147% between 1993 and 2004, New Drug Applications have only risen 38%.
According to a report posted on DrugResearcher.com , the Government Accounting Office has warned the pharmaceutical industry that although their investment in research and development has increased 147% between 1993 and 2004, New Drug Applications have only risen 38%.
Inducted into the Packaging Hall of Fame during Pack Expo International 2006, Edward Bauer elaborates on developments in pharmaceutical packaging materials in this Q&A with Healthcare Packaging.
The current buzz in package design at consumer packaged goods companies is ethnographic research. Rather than testing new packages in a sterile focus group setting, the idea is to get out in the field where the package is actually used and watch how consumers interact with it.
How often are manufacturers of medical devices and pharmaceuticals checking in with the actual end user of the product? I heard an anecdote at last year’s HealthPack conference regarding sterile syringes in individual pillow packs.
This particular package passed with flying colors every drop and ship test, and even survived storage in the hospital supply room after shelves had been readjusted to accommodate the taller box.
The only problem was when the nurse would grab the syringe and stick it in the pocket of his or her smock. Pop! The pillow pack couldn’t take the real-world environment.
