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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 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."
