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With the industries growing internationally, consumers of pharmaceutical and personal care products increasingly expect packaging to be both attractive and functional. Arjun Ramachandran writes for Packaging.
AS Australians become older and more affluent, growing markets for pharmaceutical and personal care products have seen exciting packaging developments for those products.
The pharmaceutical market in particular has seen substantial growth internationally and domestically - the latter spurred by an aging population and federal regulatory changes.
The result is a raft of new developments in pharmaceutical packaging to accommodate both new packaging requirements for existing products, and packaging forms for entirely new products hitting store shelves.
According to Colorpak Limited managing director Alex Commins, pharmaceutical manufacturers are demanding greater integrity from packaging solutions.
Recent bioterrorism scares in both the food and pharmaceutical industries have intensified this demand from manufacturers.
Cospak international business manager Travis Norman believes “intelligent packaging” is a key trend helping packaging suppliers address many of these concerns.
“Of recent times there has been development of intelligent packaging systems that play an active role in adding to the functionality, and thus the value, of the product,” he said.
Pira International director Ann Stirling Roberts broadly describes intelligent packaging as packs that communicate in some way.
“At the moment the first applications for packaging technology are very much about controlling the supply chain and improving supply chain efficiency,” she said.
“The next raft is going to about interactions with the consumer.”
Although improved supply chain management may seem vital to manufacturers of all sorts of goods, it is particularly relevant for the pharmaceutical industry, where a thriving black market causes manufacturers to suffer large losses.
It is hoped that the incorporation of radio frequency tags and RFID (radio frequency identification) technology into pharmaceutical packaging will help reduce the sale of such counterfeit drugs through better product tracking.
But, as Stirling Roberts says, pharmaceutical manufacturers are aware the advantages of intelligent packaging are not limited to the supply chain.
“Manufacturers are demanding intelligent, tamper-evident packaging that cannot easily be replicated, based on optically variable films or gas sensing dyes,” Cospak’s Travis Norman said.
The role packaging plays in protecting the integrity and effectiveness of medicine is also being better understood, says Norman.
In addition to extreme high-barrier and oxygen-absorption packaging that improves product life, he says manufacturers are also demanding packaging that conveys information about the condition of products - prior to leaving the manufacturer’s plant, through the supply chain, and ultimately even in the consumer’s hands.
Stirling Roberts says the imperative for such measures is particularly strong in the pharmaceutical industry given the cost of individual products.
“Because pharmaceuticals are a high value product, time-temperature indicators have been developed for drugs that are temperature sensitive,” she said.
However, communication can go even further in enhancing the functionality of pharmaceutical packaging.
“You can have a medicine pack that reminds you when it’s time to take your medication, or prevents you from taking medication when it’s not appropriate,” Stirling Roberts said.
Norman points to other improvements specific to pharmaceutical packaging that add to the functional value of the product.
“Dispensing systems now allow the safe dispensing of exact, controlled quantities of product,” he said.
According to Norman, dispensing systems and easy-to-open packs are just some of the new features consistent with the needs of the ageing population that is a large part of the pharmaceutical industry’s target market.
“Another trend is the inclusion of greater product use and safety information details,” Colorpak’s Alex Commins said.
The emphasis on clear and detailed labelling on pharmaceutical packaging has increased, particularly as more and more medication is available to consumers directly over-the-counter.
As has always been the case, labelling and packaging also have a large role to play in improving the aesthetic appeal of a product.
This trend is particularly evident in packaging for the personal care industry - as is understandable given the fashionable nature of many of the products.
“Trends in personal care include high quality finishes - for example foil stamped or embossed, gloss and matt contrasted coatings, and the use of metallised inks and laminates to give special effects,” Commins said.
Many personal care product manufacturers are also demanding packaging that lets the product speak for itself.
“I see a major shift from nil focus on contents in carton boxes, to outers made from clear plastics revealing the quality of the content,” Formrite-Packaging account manager Michel Kolnar said.
“We have experienced more requests for packaging with clear viewing windows to either demonstrate content or the quality of the internal packaging jars and bottles.
“This shift to transparent packaging placed confidence with the consumer to purchase.
“For increasingly discerning customers, more conscious of colour, textures and shapes, the shift to clarity in packaging assists and speeds up the selection process.”
Personal care packaging is also now characterised by the need for shorter and faster production runs, as marketers constantly come up with new concepts and products.
“Marketing departments are focused on using shapes and decorations of the container to attract the attention of the consumer,” OCME S.r.l.technical marketing manager Gabriele Folli said.
“In the personal care industry, we see the large companies are moving to establish high speed packaging lines set up for one package size/shape, but with multiple products handled on the same line.
“This allows for fast cleaning cycles to change from one product to another, which results in higher productivity and efficiencies.”
The same trends are evident in the pharmaceutical industry, with packaging machinery required to accommodate quick changeover times and small batch sizes.
As the personal care and pharmaceutical industries grow further, the packaging industry will be required to keep pace both with more efficient and more functional packaging solutions.
25-Oct-2005
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