Information nation: Pharma packaging and consumer interaction
How to maximise space and get the right information on pharmaceutical packaging – by Rupert Taylor, global category manager healthcare & personal care, Essentra
For the past two years, the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (FMD) has been one of the most talked about topics relating to pharmaceuticals in Europe. The directive addresses one of the biggest threats to consumers: counterfeit medications within the supply chain. The legislation, which will enforce the inclusion of serialisation and tamper evident features on pharmaceutical packaging, will have a huge impact on the industry. From 2019, pharmaceutical manufacturers will need to alter everything, from packaging to IT systems, the processes used to manage the supply chain to business structures.
However, despite the challenges manufacturers will face, it is vital that the transition for consumers remains smooth. In meeting the new regulatory requirements, manufacturers should not compromise the consumer experience or hinder patient adherence. After all, ultimately the goal of the FMD is to ensure that people have access to authentic pharmaceuticals, so – when taken properly – the medication can improve their lives in some way. It would clearly be detrimental if this new legislation resulted in an increase in patients’ incorrectly consuming medication.
Patient adherence is the extent to which a person’s behaviour – for example, taking medication – corresponds with agreed recommendations from a health care provider. Alarmingly, this is already a major challenge for global health: the challenge is so significant that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that there would be more worldwide benefits from improving adherence to existing treatments than from developing new ones. In fact, approximately 50% of patients with chronic diseases in developed countries do not take medications as prescribed, and this is even higher in developing countries.
According to the WHO, one of the factors that contributes to patient adherence is a lack of knowledge. Too often patients misunderstand the treatment instructions or have a lack of perception of the health risks related to their disease and the relevant medication. It is vital that as companies seek to meet the new FMD legislation they don’t inadvertently exacerbate the challenges of patient adherence, for example by adding features that reduce the space available for essential information. As a leading global provider of healthcare packaging, Essentra believes that all pharmaceutical firms should invest in packaging materials to make information as clear and accessible as possible.
Packaging can be altered in a number of ways to enhance consumer interaction. One way to increase the amount of people who take their medicine correctly is to provide more detail. There is currently a trend towards long form instructions, as consumers not only want more information but also more variations of it, for example the same information in different languages or the use of graphics as well as words.
Popular ways to increase space for information without compromising the size of the packaging include the use of extended content labels, booklet labels and leaflets. Extended content labels are an efficient way to add additional information to medicine bottles, allowing patients to peel the labels back to access more information. These labels can be ‘peel and read’ or ‘peel and reseal’ – the difference being that the latter can be resealed multiple times throughout the lifetime of the product. Similarly booklet labels are ideal for medicine bottles, allowing patients to scan through multiple pages of additional information on the product. Lastly for the maximum amount of space, medicines cartons can contain multi-fold leaflets inside. These can deliver several pages of information in multiple colours and, as they can be set out in a booklet format such as is done with Essentra’s Plurium™ leaflet, patients can open and flip through pages easily to find exactly the information they need to know.
Every patient with the same prescription will be in contact with the same packaging which, if adapted correctly, can have a major impact on influencing adherence. By making small changes to extend the amount of information made available to consumers, packaging can both inform and support patients. With the EU FMD coming into place in 2019, the chances that patients will receive the correct medicines should increase – pharmaceutical companies must now ensure that patients take these authentic medicines correctly.