Subscribe For Free! Sign up to receive the print magazine six times per year and the e-mail newsletter twice a month. Learn more >
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.
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.
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.
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.
Merix Pharmaceutical Corp. switched its retail packaging for Releev 1 Day Cold Sore Symptom Treatment to BlisterGuard security package from Colbert Packaging to thwart tampering and pilferage and meet retailer demands.
Merix Pharmaceutical Corp. switched its retail packaging for Releev 1 Day Cold Sore Symptom Treatment to the BlisterGuard security package from Colbert Packaging to thwart tampering and pilferage and meet retailer demands. This new format introduced last September is now used nationwide at Walgreens and Kmart stores, with expanded retail distribution planned throughout 2007.
Electronic compliance monitoring packaging has been around for years, yet many pharmaceutical companies are unable to quantify the return on investment of smart packaging. Pundits who predict the future of packaging often talk bout the rise of smart packaging. What exactly is a smart package? One U.K. Web site cites examples such as time-temperature food quality labels, self-heating or self-cooling containers—any package enhanced to deliver additional consumer convenience.
• synthetic substrate is suitable for most self-adhesive label applications requiring authentication and tamper evidence
• base is made from biaxially oriented expanded HDPE film that receives a special security coating
• damaged or missing label indicates contents may be altered or counterfeit
The packages of most over-the-counter (OTC) drug products have at least one thing in common: They must be tamper-evident. A tamper-evident package, according to the regulations of the Food and Drug Administration (21 CFR § 211.132), “is one having one or more indicators or barriers to entry which, if breached or missing, can reasonably be expected to provide visible evidence to consumers that tampering has occurred.”
In addition, the indicator or barrier must be “distinctive by design,” which means the tamper-evident feature is designed from material not readily available to the public. Therefore, it can't be easily duplicated. The labeling must also include a description of the safety feature.
For blister packaging, each tablet or capsule is individually sealed, so any form of tampering is immediately visible. The product label needs to include a statement similar to the following: “Do not use if blister is cut or broken.”
Pharma top growth market for flexibles
• Flexible packaging converters ranked pharmaceuticals as the top growth market, with aging baby boomers cited as a key reason for the growth. Medical device packaging was ranked as the ninth-highest flexible packaging growth market.
• The medical and pharmaceutical end-use market accounted for $1.5 billion of the $20.5 billion U.S. flexible packaging pie in 2003.
