Major trends highlighted for pharma packaging in 2018 by experts at Pharmapack

At this year’s successful pharma packaging and drug delivery exhibition and conference, Pharmapack Europe, experts highlighted forthcoming major industry trends as being personalised medicines, intelligent packaging and US Food and Drug Administration deadlines. The event organisers, UBM, revealed these expert opinions in its latest announcement.

During the media debate that took place during the show in Paris, Professor Phillipe Arnaud — chief of Pharmacy Department at Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital and ANSM expert — emphasized that customer feedback will be at the forefront of pharma packaging in the future. With social media facilitating the conversation, he stated that patient feedback about aspects of packaging that they may not like will be easier to obtain, which can then be used by companies to evolve their packaging solutions more effectively.

Despite the advantages that the internet can offer concerns were also raised, such as those by Dr Pascale Gauthier — from the Biopharmaceutical department of the Pharmacy faculty at Auvergne University — who highlighted the online threat of counterfeiting. With many people facing time constraints more and more are using online resources to purchase medicines, which are not guaranteed to be certified.

Obviously, there are regulatory changes being put in place to try to curb counterfeiting as best as possible and with such changes in mind Lionel Jeannin — Global Device & Packaging Development at Novartis Pharma — spoke about the FDM/DSCSA deadlines. These deadlines are fast approaching and the impact to manufacturing lines are potentially vast. In Jeannin’s opinion there may be a scramble for last minute changes to processes by companies that haven’t put plans in place but he also stated that he doesn’t foresee the deadlines significantly impeding the drugs supply pipeline.

All three participants of the debate agreed that there was a need for information on drugs, such as leaflets, to be more accessible to patients. Technologies like intelligent packaging should see a lot of investment in coming years to help with this. However, there was also agreement that the industry shouldn’t rush into the implementation of these technologies with some possibly overstepping the boundaries of privacy.

Additionally, during the event, attendees were able to keep on top of the latest trends and industry developments through the conference agenda, comprising of four in-depth sessions ranging in subjects from regulatory changes to drug delivery devices.

Furthermore, the Innovation Gallery provided a platform for 23 of the exhibitors to showcase their latest innovations and the Pharmapack Start-Up Hub, which this year featured the ‘Start-Up Pitch’ where companies could pitch their ideas to a panel of judges in five minute slots. Emphasizing the wider trends observed at the event, some of the products featured included: Saralon, printed electronics for smart packing in order to combat counterfeiting; Linguanomics RD, an IT& IoT company with a digital medical label that allows patients to get information of a product on their smartphone; and Veratrak, a cloud enterprise that secures the pharma supply chain using blockchain technology.

“This year’s edition of Pharmapack has been very exciting, with the event continuing to inspire innovation throughout the industry,” stated Anne Schumacher, brand director at Pharmapack Europe. “But it also showed what a great year there is potentially ahead, pushing on with new innovations and products. Pharmapack is now the vital conduit for executives looking for new partners, to access comprehensive information on the latest trends and do the deals driving forward pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery.”