Hyderabad based Goose, a specialist in pharmaceutical business re-engineering solutions, has become one of the first few companies in the global market to introduce ‘Artwork Manager’ with advanced proof reading capabilities.

The Artwork Manager provides dedicated support to the packaging department of the pharmaceutical industry to automate the labelling and packaging artwork process without a glitch thereby reducing product recall due to faulty print, product mislabelling and manpower costs. It also, increases the turnaround time for effective and error-free artwork approvals.

It has been well documented that the costs associated with pharmaceutical packaging can represent up to 70 per cent of the cost of the finished product. In addition, industry experts estimate that between 35 to 40 per cent of all pharmaceutical product recalls are attributed to packaging and labelling errors and omissions. A further challenge is presented with rise in material costs for paper, film and ink, making increasingly difficult to produce sustainable labels and packaging with good shelf appeal while keeping costs low due to faulty artwork management system.

According to Deb Pattnaik, founder and CEO of Goose the challenges of pharmaceutical artwork management are becoming complex globally. With intense pressure on time to market and to maintain consistent brand appeal, organizations are on the look- out for new ways to accelerate packaging processes. Our ‘Artwork Manager’ is designed to not only address this challenge but also help comply with brand guidelines, including regional and regulatory requirements effortlessly that is so vital for the pharma industry.

Goose Artwork Manager is currently implemented in Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd, Aurobindo Pharma, Elder Pharmaceuticals, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Strides Acrolab and other pharma companies. Goose is also in discussion with several other pharma organizations to roll out similar solutions.

“One of the biggest challenges faced by packaging department in a pharma company is Product Information Leaflet (PIL) proof reading. Companies employ large team of proof readers who manually proof read PILs that contain text in multiple languages, chemical symbols, and images. With this advanced leaflet comparison feature, the proof reading becomes absolutely simple thereby reducing errors, he added.

In a recent report by AMR Research revealed that in a six-month period last year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) statistics show that there were about 455 product recall notices issued, of which, 51 per cent were because of mislabelling and 13 per cent were because of faulty packaging. In addition to preventing recalls, in the report AMR observes that technology can reduce the time for packaging artwork approval by 30 per cent and improve productivity by 5 per cent.

There are many benefits that efficient automated artwork process can bring to the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, legal requirements often force pharma manufacturers to make changes at short notice. Additionally, marketing departments require rapid changes to react to fluctuations in market conditions. Even a few weeks can be decisive in the field of generics, as lead time in the introduction of new products is of paramount importance and pharma company do need to have their artwork completed as early as possible.