According to Freedonia’s ‘World pharmaceutical packaging’ report, the world pharmaceutical packaging is expected to reach $90 billion in 2017 and not surprisingly the report notes that countries like India and China will experience the fastest product demand growth.
The demand for pharma packaging has grown exponentially and the Indian pharmaceutical packaging is expected to be worth US $ 60 billion by 2020. More and more pharmaceutical companies are emphasising on the uniqueness and the efficacy of the packaging for their products. Customer convenience and product safety takes predominance when it comes to a niche market like pharmaceuticals. Also, it becomes important for the companies to be able to create a brand recall among customers and to be able to fight counterfeit products.
Most pharmaceutical companies are moving towards PET bottles from glass bottles owing to its efficacy and user friendliness. Although, PET started out as a replacement for glass bottles in the 90’s, it has now become the first choice for pharma packaging. Due to its versatile, convenient safe and eco-friendliness, PET has become a popular packaging option for paediatric, geriatric and reproductive health drugs. PET not only increases shelf life of the products but is easier to transport them in bulk.
Since PET is chemically inert, non toxic and has high molecular weight the possibility of migration propensity is very low. Hence, PET bottles are widely used for pharma packaging globally. In the last four decades, more than 300 million metric tonnes of PET has been consumed for pharmaceutical packaging globally.
For the past two decades, India alone has consumed more than 5 lakh metric tonnes of PET bottles to produce over 40 billion packs of liquids in the pharma sector.
The pharmaceutical packaging industry is evolving globally and India has caught up with certain popular packaging trends.
Lighter packagings
Most pharmaceutical companies are moving towards PET bottles from glass bottles for its efficacy and user friendliness. PET not only increases shelf life of the products but is easier to transport them in bulk. As the demand for PET bottles for pharma packaging is constantly increasing, the need to keep the packaging lighter and efficient is also becoming crucial. Most pharmaceutical companies are venturing towards a lighter packaging as its both cost effective and reduce carbon foot print. There is a slow shift from the standard 25mm ROPP neck finish to 22mm ROPP finish. This gives saving in PET material for both bottle and cap.
The process of light-weighting involves a complex design process which focuses on the ideal material distribution that results in considerable weight reduction without compromising on strength, appearance or performance features of the PET bottle.
When it comes to light weighting, the change in the neck finish from the traditional 1810 to 188 (popularly known as short neck) of the PET performs reduces the distance between the neck rings and knurling, besides shrinking the turnings on the neck from three to two. This change not only resulted in reducing the weight of the preforms from 5.1 grams to 3.8 grams but also the weight of the caps from 2.8 grams to 2.5 grams.
Nitrogen dousing which is a popular technique to lightweight bottles has proven to be very effective. Injecting nitrogen into the bottle headspace after filling displaces the air in the headspace and creates an internal pressure of 5 to 10 psi. As it increases the bottle’s rigidity, nitrogen flushing ensures extra strength without adding extra weight. This also provides the bottles with mechanical strength and higher shelf life.
Barrier films
This is possibly the second most important use of packaging. Packaging needs to protect contents from oxygen, water vapour, dust or anything that may degrade the quality of the product in any way. Some packages contain desiccants that absorb oxygen to help extend shelf life. Keeping the contents sterile, safe for extended shelf life is a key function of this technology.
CRC
One of the most popular trends in the pharma packaging currently is the ‘Child Resistant Closure Caps’ or CRC caps. Keeping in mind the increase in demand for the PET bottles in the pharma sector, companies are making an effort to move from their neck finish to a child resistant and squeeze loc enabled finish.
Anti- counterfeit products
Counterfeit products are a prominent problem especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Many companies have to fight fake products and their products being adulterated and sold by other vendors. The industry is on a constant quest to fight counterfeit products.
Packaging can play a key role in fighting counterfeit products and create awareness about the authenticity of the products. Packaging measures to ensure authenticity can range from being simple like serialisation to being complex like mixing diamond powder to the ink used for labelling products.
Some of the popular measures taken in the current times to fight counterfeit products are:
- Introduction of hologram embedded seals
- Tamper-evident peel able labels
- Flexi-cap and labels that would prevent the possibility of unnoticed illegal reuse
- Tamper evident caps with ring
The pharmaceutical industry and the packaging industry are growing simultaneously adhering to consumer preferences. The industries are constantly evolving to keep pace with the upcoming technologies and to keep counterfeiting in check.
(The author is Managing Director, Manjushree Technopack)