Two packs have been awarded Bronze Stars in the Best Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Design category of the UK's annual Starpack Awards.
The judges felt unable to award either Gold or Silver Stars in this section as the entries did not create a real benchmark for the industry. However, the panel felt that two entries deserved Bronze Stars for making incremental advances in ergonomics, functionality and reduced use of materials.
The Dysport 2 vial pack manufactured by MY Healthcare for Ipsen Biopharm is used for an injectable pharmaceutical product in vial form. Two vials of product and a Patient Information Leaflet are held securely in a cardboard frame and enclosed in a cardboard, tamper-evident carton, with an easy tear-open front panel. |When the customer opens the pack, the vials of product are easy to remove, thereby exposing the Patient Information Leaflet.
The existing 2-vial pack uses a plastic tray and a plastic lid to enclose each vial, with each tray and lid using 8g of plastic. The new pack uses no plastic components to enclose the vials, as each vial is held securely by the neck in a cardboard frame. The use of 32g of plastic per 2-vial pack has therefore been saved.
The new pack has been designed for semi- and fully automatic packing machine capabilities, whereas the existing packs are entirely hand assembled. The ability to use automated machinery will allow the company to accommodate the high forecast growth of the product economically and efficiently.
Furthermore, the new pack is half the volume of the existing pack, which minimises the use of cold storage capacity during storage and distribution and for the customer, both of which result in a reduction of energy usage. It also allows twice as many packs to be packed into the existing shipper, halving the number of shippers required. As a large number of these shippers are insulated boxes containing gel packs and expanded polystyrene insulation, there is a significant reduction in the use of expensive and complex shippers.
A Bronze Star was also awarded to the Duma Twist-Off closure with integrated desiccant entered by Gerresheimer Plastic Packaging, of Germany.
Previously, the desiccant was produced separately from the closure and incorporated later as an outsourced component. Now the multi-function plastic products are produced in a single process with the integrated desiccant. This integrated concept facilitates registration for the pharmaceutical industry.
According to Gerresheimer, design refinements to the closure make it easier for patients to open and optimise the running characteristics of the closures on pharmaceutical filling and capping equipment.
The Duma closure has also gained a German Packaging Award and a WorldStar in 2007, and was recently given the Silver President's Award 2008 by the World Packaging Organisation (WPO).