As the pharmaceutical packaging industry is evolving globally, India is fast catching up with certain popular packaging trends. Giving emphasis on efficient packaging, Indian pharmaceutical companies are now focusing on customer convenience and product safety. Packaging is also vital for them to create a brand recall among customers and to fight the menace of counterfeits.
India and China are experiencing the fastest product demand growth in the $90 global billion pharmaceutical packaging industry. With the exponential demand growth for pharma packaging, the Indian pharmaceutical packaging is expected to touch $60 billion by 2020, said industry observers.
Increasing PET bottle usage
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 90s, 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 and geriatric 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 five lakh metric tonnes of PET bottles to produce over 40 billion packs of liquids in the pharma sector.
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 reduces carbon foot print. There is slow shift from the standard 25mm ROPP neck finish to 22mm ROPP finish. This gives saving in PET material for both bottle and cap, said Vimal Kedia, managing director, Manjushree Technopack.
The process of light weight 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, said Kedia.
However, globally in the wake of plastic ban, there is an increasing interest by global pharma majors to opt for glass. In this regard, it is reported that Merck, Pfizer and Corning’s have collaborated for Valor glass packaging to boost US manufacturing job creation, innovation, improved access to medicines and patient safety. The move follows President Donald Trump’s announcement of $500 million drug packaging project for US firms on July 20.
“Corning has developed the pharmaceutical glass packaging technology for storage and delivery of injectable drugs called ‘Valor Glass.’ The initial investment by the three companies will cover the expansion of Corning facilities, as well as the building of a new high-volume manufacturing plant to support the new, safer and innovative manufacturing process of pharmaceutical glass,” according to the Healthcare Packaging report.
Other popular trends
Barrier films is possibly the second most important use of packaging. This 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.
Another most popular trend 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. Research analysts forecast the global child resistant packaging market to grow at a CAGR of 4.36 per cent during the period 2017-2021.
Child resistant packaging (CRP) is a special type of packaging that is used to reduce the risk of children ingesting products inside the package. CRP is designed in such a way that children under five years of age find it difficult to open or ingest toxic substances, while it remains user-friendly for adults. On the basis of end-users, CRP can be used in pharmaceutical, personal care, and other industries. The growth of the CRP market is because of the growth of the global packaging market, specifically in pharmaceutical industry packaging.
Fighting counterfeit products
With counterfeit products being a key issue 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 and tamper- evident caps with ring, said Kedia.
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. However, so long the demand is for pharma packaging revolving around light weight, barrier, CRC and anti-counterfeiting, he said.
Current trends in pharmaceutical packaging are mainly driven by regulatory changes, which are more focused on addressing the growing threat of counterfeiters. According to international bodies such as the World Health Organisation, counterfeiting concerns are approximately 10 per cent of the global pharmaceutical market. While this translates to around one per cent of drugs in developed countries in Europe and North America, the issue is more severe in developing countries in Africa and the Far East where the figure can rise up to 30 per cent. In response to this continued threat, government leaders, politicians and executives from major pharmaceutical providers are coming together, to increase efforts to protect citizens through regulation and the application of track and trace serialisation and tamper verification features, Narayanaswamy A, general manager, Essentra had told Pharmabiz in an earlier interaction.
From a supplier perspective, the market for pharmaceutical packaging is more fragmented in India than a number of other markets in which Essentra operates.
However, given its established export market for pharmaceutical products, the manufacturing of packaging for this industry in India is not that dissimilar from developed countries, in terms of the international regulatory requirements which our products need to meet and the standards to which our facilities must comply. Indeed, we believe that Essentra is well-placed to serve not only customers producing for the domestic market, but also those exporting overseas, given our global footprint and experience in dealing with the secondary packaging requirements of many countries from the United States to the
European Union, and even China, he said.