Pharmaceutical Packaging Innovations

Idea behind this book is to bring the innovations to wider group of professionals to meet the mission of packaging knowledge sharing and that too cost effectively. We feel that this publication will further fill the project pipelines of companies and improve the standards of packaging. Many professionals either do not have the access or time to go through so many innovations together. So we think this publication will fill that gap. Pharmaceutical Packaging is not a recent phenomenon. It is an activity closely associated with the evolution of society and, as such, can be tracked back to human beginnings. The nature, degree, and amount of Packaging at any stage of society’s growth reflect the needs, cultural patterns, material availability, and technology of that society. The pace of the technological change in Packaging field is bringing new innovative packaging ideas and Pharmaceutical Packaging is not an exception. Society is changing daily; meeting new challenge, integrating new knowledge, accommodating new needs. These changes are inevitably reflected in the way we package, deliver and consume goods. Pharmaceutical Packaging though a concept started from the evolution of civilization, meeting new challenges everyday making it necessary to keep innovating. Pharmaceutical Packaging is much specialised field. It is quite broad, encompassing, and multi-faceted task and quite challenging as it requires the application of a large amount of scientific and engineering expertise. Historically, packaging of pharmaceutical products has been done in two forms. One is unit dose packing and the second is multi dose packing. The most significant advance in the packaging of drugs used in hospitals was the introduction of the unit doses for oral medicines. Although strip packaging for an aspirin-based product (Aspro) started in 1927, some 20 years elapsed before the concept was widely used. During the early 1950s, some tablets and capsules were available packages individually into pockets in a continuous tube, and capsules were available packaged individually unto pockets in a continuous tube, the pockets being separated from each other by perforation in the foil strip. From this concept, the hospital unit dose evolved. The advantages are obvious: this form of packaging controls the dispensing and administering of a prescribed single dose of the correct drug at the right time, and it significantly reduced hospital errors, especially when prefilled disposable syringes came in use in the USA in the 1960s. Blister packaging, first introduced in American hospitals, was an even greater improvement in safe dispensing. The tablet or capsule is visible through the ‘blister’ and the product can thus be recognized before the package is opened. Today both strip packs and blister packs are used world widely. Asia Pacific region is expected to show an increase in demand in the global pharmaceutical packaging market. It stated that North America held the largest market share in 2011. It held more than 30%, due to the huge demand for pharmaceutical packaging in Canada and the U.S. this dominance could soon be cut short by Asia Pacific, which is currently the fastest growing region in the pharmaceutical packaging market. By 2018, the region could effectively hold more than 25% of the market share. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to reach USD 20.63 billion by 2018. Development of innovative packaging that provides a combination of product protection, quality, security, tamper evidence and visual appeal to enhance consumer consumption and reduce counterfeiting and other malpractices is expected to boost the market within the forecast period