Gerresheimer Focuses on Usability at CPhI 2015

Gerresheimer announced that it will be displaying a range of usability engineered standard and specialty pack­aging products in glass and plastic at this year’s CPhI in Madrid.

Usability, defined as the objective to maximize technical reliability, affects both patients and health professionals. The number of people who are self-medicating is increasing, noted Jessica Kreher, graduate designer specializing in usability and sales engineer at Gerresheimer Medical Systems, in a press release. According to her, self-medication is fast becoming a trend worldwide, driven by the increasing access to medical care in many developing countries. Kreher will be giving a talk on the advantages of usability. The presentation, “Usability Engineering for Drug Delivery Devices,” is scheduled to take place at 2 pm on October 13.  

Manufacturers are required to take into account usability engineering in the development of medical and pharmaceutical products according to international design control regulations. The risk manage­ment standard, ISO 14971, sets out the application of risk management to medical devices to mitigate the technical and operational risks as far as possible. The objective is to maximize user safety, for exam­ple, by ensuring that an inhaler adminis­ters the entire required dose of an asthma drug.

Gerresheimer Medical Systems’ product portfolio extends from easy-open tablet bottles and an application aid that helps eye drop users to position the bottle properly to syringes, injection pens, asthma inhalers, and an optimized heart catheter delivery device.

Glass syringe study

Good usability is also important in glass syringes. The Gerresheimer Center of Excellence for ready-to-fill glass syringes in Bünde conducted a study between 2011 and 2015, which examined 20,000 syringes in different sizes and configurations, and for various applications. The study identified factors that are decisive to optimum syringe function.

Prefilled syringes are increasingly being used to administer a number of drugs because of the advantages they offer. Prefilled syringes contain the correct quantity of drug, allow for a convenient injection process, and come in ready to use formats, thereby facilitating hospital and clinical processes. Auto-injectors, which contain a pre-filled syringe, are in­creasingly being used by patients in their homes. For example, they permit arthritis sufferers to inject their medication without another per­son’s assistance.

DUMA Twist-Off Advanced containers

Gerresheimer’s Duma Twist-Off plastic container is designed for usability and function­ality. One of the improvements made is the introduc­tion of a rounded base to eliminate thin areas.  This new design achieves an even more uniform wall thickness all over the container, offering improved barrier properties compared to a more organic design. Container volume, average wall thickness, and the main dimensions are key specifications for registrations and stability tests, so they have not been changed. The new containers are compatible with high-perfor­mance Duma Twist-Off closures and the existing Duma Twist-Off range because they have the same filling line settings.

New DUMA Twist-Off closure-senior-friendly, child-resistant, and tamper-evident features in one single closure

These features reflect the constant focus on child safety and accident prevention. They also address the need of the growing population of elderly patients as well as people with disabilities who required special packaging solutions. The improved Duma Twist-Off Closure 03833D has been designed to be senior-friendly and yet child-resistant. A picto­gram on the closure explains the special opening mechanism that pre­vents children from being able to open it (child-resistant feature), and a castellated design with “turrets” provides a better grip and can be opened very easily with a pen or another suitable implement (senior-friendly feature).

Source: Gerresheimer, Booth 4F30