Trends in Pharmaceutical Packaging

The increasing number of biopharmaceuticals in the development pipeline has created the need for packaging technologies with enhanced safety features, especially for sensitive biologic drugs. Proteins are particularly challenging because of their tendency to unfold and interact with the glass, plastic, or rubber components that they come into contact with. It is, therefore, crucial that primary packaging materials offer sufficient protection to the high-value ingredients and formulations as well as provide quality assurance.

Pharmaceutical packaging must also take into account external factors that can affect the safety and efficacy of the drug product during transportation and storage, such as exposure to light, temperature, vibration, and contamination. Thermal and mechanical stress are known to affect the stability of proteins.

With the impending serialization deadline, pharmaceutical manufacturers must ensure that their product packaging complies with anti-counterfeiting and track-and-trace requirements. New EU packaging legislations mandate additional safety features such as serial numbers and anti-tamper seals.

According to an ACHEMA trend report, “intelligent” packaging is becoming a significant trend. Several companies are making efforts to put in place advanced quality assurance systems to support the development of primary packaging and to monitor the filling process.

The report notes that modularization and flexibility are a second major trend. Generic drug manufacturers and contract service providers, for example, often require packaging lines that can handle small batches with minimal changeover time.

Visitors at ACHEMA 2015 can view a range of innovations in pharmaceutical packaging technologies and solutions in Hall 3, in the Forum and in the Pavillon Agora.

Source: ACHEMA trend report on primary packaging