5 Challenges Facing Pharmaceutical Packaging Today

When it comes to holistic product development strategies, patient compliance, and adherence to the affects of the supply chain efficiency are crucial. And with the constantly changing healthcare landscape, pharmaceutical packaging suppliers continue to struggle to meet the highest standards of packaging for pharmaceuticals. 

The good thing with challenges, however, is that stakeholders are constantly working on different solutions to the problem. 

If you are getting ready to join the pharmaceutical world, you might want to have a keen understanding of some of the challenges you may face. This is because the packaging is one of the most widespread industries globally. The pharmaceutical industry is full of innovative minds, but even then, there are different challenges. While the packaging was initially a simple thing designed to ensure the simple transportation of pharmaceuticals, the industry has grown significantly, and a lot has to be considered on top branding. Factors like safety, security, and quality control are crucial, hence the challenges faced in the industry. There’s also the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is governed by very stringent packaging standards.

Below, we look at some of the most common challenges faced in the packaging of pharmaceuticals.

1. Safely Transporting Non-Solid Medication

While tablets and pills are comparatively easy to transport because they are stackable or able to use blister packaging like these https://www.keyboxco.com/products/blister-packaging/, the liquid injections and medications, especially the ones with glass packaging, are not as easy to handle given their fragility. The pharmaceutical packaging industry, therefore, finds itself in a constant search for the best and the most innovative packaging solutions, including the use of rotomolded cases, foam packaging, and even glass cases. Unfortunately, these solutions aren’t always perfect, and some losses are incurred.

2. Inaccurate Dosage/ Drug Information

Even with branding ‘gods’ out there, it’s unfortunate that the packaging of pharmaceuticals, the products intended to save lives, could be labeled incorrectly. Noting that this is a critical element of pharmaceutical packaging, companies are asked to provide accurate data on dosage, drug information, and interactions, etc. All that information must be on the product’s packaging. The companies are also required to include valuable information such as the serial and the batch number, usage directions, and expiration dates, among others.

3. Maintenance of the Medicinal Quality of Products

The other big challenge faces involve maintaining the medicinal properties of the medications being transported amid exposure to weather changes, including exposure to extreme heat and humidity, two conditions that render the products being transported useless. The pharmaceutical industry is, therefore, constantly searching for the perfect packaging to reduce environmental exposure and subsequent damage.

4. Conflicting packaging materials used in the newly developed drugs

While there are vast development and the innovation of new-age drugs, the industry is faced with the big challenge of the new drugs being packaged in materials that create conflict. An example of this conflict is seen in drug-packaging combinations that result in the flaking of the glass packaging or when silicone oil is used in the prefilled syringes as a lubricant for the plunger – the lubricant disturbs the protein complexes. 

5. Product forging

Innovation and competition are great things, but the unfortunate bit is that there is always greed, which has led to the development of many counterfeits. Today, there is an increase in the use of hologram stickers, scannable codes, and even UV prints, all in a bid to reduce forging. 

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