Packaging has touched almost all facets of our lives with all delivered products being packed in some form or the other. While companies are more than eager to provide a packaged product that remains protected and lasts for its entire shelf life, the consumer wants to buy a product that would be effective for its intended use. Consumer goods and pharma companies are consciously working with packaging solutions provider to optimize the packaging for its size, its weight, its effectiveness, convenience to use, and product-to-weight ratio. The consumer, on the other hand, is looking for a user-friendly package that is easier to access, takes less space for storage, is attractive, and ensures that the packed product retains its efficacy.
Plenty of choice exists for packaging material and it includes glass, paper, corrugated, metal, and of course, plastics. Each of these materials would have its own advantages and disadvantages vis-à-vis its usefulness for packing the product. Each of these materials, depending on its needs, could be used as primary packaging, secondary packaging or tertiary packaging.
Take pharmaceutical products, for example, where in both solid and liquid oral dosages are packed in different formats. The primary packaging for the same needs to meet the stringent regulatory standards such as EC and EU compliance, CONEG, USFDA compliance, SFDA compliance and Canadian Health Regulations. Additionally, the packaging solutions need to have DMF, type III registration.
Product optimization has several routes by which it can be achieved. One of the ways is to use less material. In other words, the package-to-product weight ratio should be as minimal as possible for desired protection. Generally, pharmaceutical products require a high barrier against moisture as well as oxygen. PCTFE-laminated PVC-films are widely used for solid oral dosages packed in blister packs that require the highest barrier. PCTFE films come in a variety of thicknesses and offer customized barrier for the product to be packed.
PVDC-coated PVC films are the choice materials for pharmaceutical drugs that require moisture as well as oxygen barrier. ACG Pharmapack has developed ultra-high barrier PVDC-based films that provide superior barrier properties as compared to regular PVDC. EVOH is another material that provides effective barrier against oxygen. All these films can certainly be optimized in terms of its thickness, and thereby, its yield, which is calculated in terms of sq.meters per gram of film consumed.
Certain molecules are being packed in cold form blisters not for its barrier requirement but for its aesthetic needs. ACG Pharmapack offers its customers a unique packaging solution, Alukbliss that looks like an aluminum foil but could be processed and thermoformed using standard and widely available flat forming or rotary forming machines. It offers an advantage to drug manufacturers that do not require the barrier of cold form blisters, while being able to pack their molecules in regular size blisters made on existing and standard machines. Alukbliss allows companies to reduce the pack size, thereby, increasing the cube space utilization and effectively reducing the packaging cost while maintaining the attractive looks of aluminum.
Many molecules that do not require barrier are currently packed in blister packs made from mono PVC films with aluminum foil being used as the lidding material. So, on one hand, you have a low barrier material like PVC that allows moisture and oxygen ingress, and on the other hand, you have an aluminum foil that is impervious to both moisture and oxygen. As aluminum foil is expensive, the question that one needs to ask is whether this pack is serving its intended application or whether it is actually over-engineered and creating packaging inefficiency and waste. To address this, ACG Pharmapack offers a lidding material called Immaculid. It is made of specially-developed paper and optimally-engineered PVdC coating. Immaculid provides the same barrier as PVC, balancing the functional requirements of the blister with certain cost and yield advantages as compared to aluminum lidding foil. Immaculid also provides excellent sealing characteristics to not just PVC, but also APET blisters, making it an ideal solution for solid oral dosage blister packs, vials packaging, injectables packaging or prefilled syringe packaging.
The industry has seen several innovations in anti-counterfeit packaging technologies including the use of specialized printing, differential grated images, heat and light sensitive inks etc. Brandshield is another innovative packaging solution by ACG Pharmapack that entails the use of unique differentially grated images on blister films. Available in customized barrier properties this anti-counterfeit solution is overt, easily discernible by the end consumer, and does not require use of complicated detection systems.
Specialized inks have been developed that can be used for printing on PVdC. This is especially useful in markets such as Bangladesh where PVdC coating is prevalent on the outside of the blister pack. The pharma companies are keen to use the surface area on the blister for branding and this solution provides an avenue to do so. Specialized printing is also available for cold form blister foils as an anti-counterfeiting option and as a branding solution.
Another medium for delivering drugs especially in liquid forms such as ophthalmic solutions is unit dose packaging for which specially-developed self-sealing films are used. Healthcare packaging and medical device packaging have their own unique needs in terms of absolute sterility like films need to be sterilizable by ETO, Gamma or Steam, and forming of deeper cavities. The barrier films needed for such applications are designed keeping in mind these special requirements.
Pharmaceutical industry is growing in double digits, and concurrently, the pharma packaging industry would expand as well. While plastics packaging is here to stay, questions like these are bound to be asked. Are we packing more with less? Is the packaging solution providing the highest barrier possible for a given product for a kilogram of foil consumed? Are the end consumers getting their medicines with full efficacy intact? Are packaging solutions easy to access (but not so much for children) and fit for use (even for senior citizens)? Are consumers getting a genuine product? ACG, as a packaging solutions provider, continues to work closely with the healthcare industry to provide answers to these questions.