Trends of the pharmaceutical market

Cavanna is a packaging machinery company with factories in New Jersey, US, Sao Paulo, Brazil and headquarters in Prato Sesia, Italy, part of Italy's packaging valley.

Trends in the drugs market are driven by increasing demand for drugs due to an aging population, the need for proven cost benefits and cost effectiveness and scientific breakthroughs. These are balanced the need to reduce costs, competition and compliance requirements. As far as pharmaceutical packaging is concerned the trend is towards shorter package lifecycles, demands for greater process flexibility, with changes tied to marketing schedules and efficiency and operating cost pressures.

Alessandra Cavanna, managing director of the company said: 'Packaging needs in pharmaceutical market are changing, due to new formulations and therapy methods. Cavanna splits the field into three: prescription medicines, OTC products and medical devices such as syringes, catheters, test tubes and urological glasses.

As if to prove this, Cavanna has about 8000 products, from bandaging to implantable devices; equipment to select and diagnose health or illness states to the more specialised creations for diagnostic imaging and low invasive surgical devices.'

'When we talk about medicines, we promptly think of tablets or capsules because we mean something to take by mouth. But nowadays, for several pathologies, drug undertaking has been turned with the intention of bettering the psychological state of the sick on therapy, and they take medicine via the skin, noise or injection. This progressive change modifies the kind of packaging too.

Besides, the generic drugs growing and the OTC products coming are giving all the prevalent pharmaceutical division under pressure, - prevalent" means those companies holding pharma patents, and it seems that they are no more able to maintain the prices applied till now.

Thus we begin to see pharmaceutical companies united in the research, investing money in medicine laboratories and ordering outside for the packaging.

The product batches are becoming more and more small, obliging companies to look for a flexibility not so felt before. The request of more product protection is very important too.

In any case, pharmaceutical field is holding its rules; packaging machines must be easy to run, intuitive, effective, efficient and safe; they have to guarantee the continuous carring out of the purpose they were designed for. (VALIDATE)

Concerning flexibility, the robotic use is also becoming a very important element, sometimes buffer machines are considered. Regarding machines driven by software, they have to be more and more certified in conformity with 21CFR Part 11 FDA regulations - the management of electronic records and signatures.

Products suitable to be packaged with flexible films.

Except for bottles containing solutions or suspensions and for the pastes of topical use, that are obligatorily in tuce, we can say that all other products, from medicinals to medical devices, are suitable to be wrapped with flexible film. The most common packaging is the four edge sealing.

Among the products suitable to be packed with flexible film, the ones to be flow-pack wrapped are the following:

Physiologic solutions in strip of disposable phials (Libenar by Glaxo)

Aerosol solutions in strip of disposable phials (Clenil by Chiesi Farmaceutici)

PlasticTrays with phials of injectable solutions (Rocef in by Roche, Fluimicil by Zambon, Artrosilene by bompE)

Medical collyrium in disposable phials (Allergan, Unither)

Inhaler spray (Ventolin by Glaxo, Clenil by Chiesi, Astra Zeneca)

Pregnancy test (Predictor by Angelici, Analisys timetest by Artsana, Clearplan by Farmades)

Contraceptive pills (Barr labs, Abbott, Schering)

Blisters containing pills, tablets, rigid capsuls (excluding gelatine capsuls and vaginal suppositories)

Medical devices, as syringes, glasses, test tubes, catheters, plasma bags, dermoclysis bags, bandages, some type of transdermic plasters, dental radiographic material, toothbrushes, and so on.

Most of the flexible film packed products sold on Italian market are imported.

Japan is the only one country in the world where the 100% of products are packed in flexible film, using flowpack too. But this market is protected, therefore pharmaceuticals companies use almost only Japanese devices.

North America is considered the second country for the use of flexible film and f low- pack. It has the most number of pharmaceutical companies, and almost all the contraceptive and the pregnancy tests, flow-pack wrapped, are American.

China is an emergent market, where the flow-pack in the pharma field is growing up thanks to the investments of many foreign companies.

The case, although being a cost about which many companies are thinking about, doesn't seem to let the only flowpack pass.

In the package of a pharma product there are also the leaflet and the molecular sieve. On the case, as requested by OMS, the Braille Code is imprinted. This is hardly reproducible on film.

Machinery builder Cavanna SpA operates an internal Packaging Material team. Its materials test department of two engineers operate four wrappers and numerous jaws and sealing wheels. We watched a demonstration of an underwater burst test of just-wrapped chocolates.

Cavanna contacts

T +39 0163 829 111 E cavanna@cavanna.it