Safety and reliability of the hottest drug packagi

Safety and reliability of drug packaging (II)

while the demand for packaging equipment continues to show healthy growth, the drug packaging market, especially single dose pharmaceutical products such as blister packaging, is expanding at a rate of several times. Single dose pharmaceutical packaging, including blister packaging and foil usually seen on doctor samples, has long been sold in Europe through vending machines, which is also the method of distribution of most prescription drugs in Europe

it is expected that the overall market of pharmaceutical packaging materials will grow at a high rate of 4.3% in the next few years, of which blister packaging will grow the fastest

due to the use of barrier materials, blister packaging and foil can prevent moisture infiltration and have a longer service life. At the same time, it is easier to add on site, and the output value is large enough to meet the dual challenges of "preventing children from opening" and "making it easy for the elderly" - both of which are forcibly managed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

however, the packaging of single drug requires higher equipment and packaging material costs. Because each package is formed, filled and sealed in one stop on one packaging line, the operation is much more complicated than traditional packaging. "Blister packaging machine... Requires more accurate control and more work to set and verify process parameters." Howard Leary, vice president of engineering at Luciano packaging technologies, said Luciano is a system integrator based in Somerville, New Jersey. "To add foil backing and complete sealing requires specific pressure, temperature and mold closing time. This is a more complex machine, which requires higher knowledge of EPS industry to operate and verify."

in addition, the whole concept of single drug packaging is just opposite to the traditional idea for a long time. Hospitals and large drug chains may like its efficiency and traceability, but pharmacists will look at it sideways because such a system pushes them out of the distribution process

like blister and foil packaging equipment, blow molding filling sealing (BFS) machinery for intravenous drugs (liquid injection) is slowly entering the U.S. market in the competition with traditional medicine bottle and ampoule bottle packaging technology. Using BFS machine, a container or "plastic parison" can be blown out of various plastics on the machine, and then the injected products are filled in the next station, and finally sealed. This step includes closing and cutting off the protruding part of the parison, and adding a certain type of cap or cover. The whole processing process is completed in an independent room where consumers have reason to believe that with the increasingly perfect service system and good service attitude, the injected drugs and the processing air are filtered to sterile cleanliness

a significant advantage of BFS technology is that it can be used to produce high-performance lightweight thermoplastic honeycomb core materials and sandwich panels by etching the mold or needle equipment, contacting the parison wall during molding, and engraving the product code, batch number or other identification code on the package. "In general, this makes the container itself resistant to addition and no longer needs to be labeled," said Chuk reed, sales manager of Weiler engineering in Elgin, Ohio. Although BFS technology has been widely used in Europe and other parts of the world, little progress has been made in its application in the United States, especially for solutions to respiratory and ophthalmic diseases, Mr. reed added. (to be continued)