Printing for the pharmaceutical industry

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Alan Ryan, managing director at Technoprint, explains the challenges that printing businesses face in supplying the pharmaceutical industry and the medicine needed to solve them.

There are few independent printing businesses servicing the pharmaceutical industry in the UK and the inner workings of such a niche business is unknown to many. With one of the biggest papers shortages the industry has faced, the uncertainty of overseas conflict, Brexit and a global pandemic: it has certainly been a challenging time for the printing industry. 

Removing all these factors that are beyond control, there are various hurdles to overcome in order to be on top of the game in servicing the pharmaceutical industry, especially as a smaller business competing with some large corporations. 

Specialist paper

Sourcing a lightweight paper in the industry is no easy task. In fact, there’s not many commercial printers that can handle paper that is less than 80 grams but using papers that are more like 45 to 50 grams has lots of advantages. This kind of paper requires particular skill and machinery, as well as the right conditions. Why does the paper need to be so light? Patient information leaflets are getting larger, for various reasons, but the packaging often must remain the same. Lightweight paper means that all the information can fit onto larger paper whilst the packaging, weight, transport etc does not have to change.

This kind of delicate and lightweight paper requires a very specific environment and humidity can spoil the paper: think about the school science experiment with the kettle and steaming a piece of paper and making the edges curl!  Handling, folding, and guillotining this paper is a niche and specialist skill. It’s crucial that premises have 24/7 365 days a year humidity control to prevent any paper being spoilt, as if it does get bowed or bent it can be difficult to print on at high speed and folding becomes almost impossible. These are the kinds of lessons you learn after a long time in the industry. 

Legislation changes and regulations

Many years ago, regulations in the pharmaceutical industry changed which meant that leaflets had to be more easily readable for customers. This meant an increase in typeface and spacing which also meant leaflets had to become larger. The problem was that despite leaflets being bigger, pharma companies still needed them to fit in the existing cartons.  A way of overcoming this would be using a paper designed specifically for patient information leaflets for the pharmaceutical industry, such as Pharmalite. Also, by adapting printing and folding equipment to enable efficient production of these extreme lightweight papers.

A more recent change has been the requirement for more information and languages on leaflets and again, the size of the leaflets must remain the same. If cartons were to change, this affects everything from needing to buy new packaging machines, to rearranging the shelves that medicine sits on in the shops. The cost of this could potentially run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

Another hurdle printing suppliers must overcome is keeping on top of various industry regulations. These businesses are regularly audited by BSI and to be able to supply clients, we have the PS9000 standard which is the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) required by pharmaceutical companies. Maintaining that standard is quite a feat and not many leaflet suppliers have this accreditation. I believe there’s around five in the UK.  

Supply chain

The world is currently facing a shortage of pulp, which is of course a crucial ingredient in paper. Not only that, but due to strike action, one of the biggest paper mills in Finland hasn’t been in operation since January 2022. You could call this a perfect storm which has left the world with a huge paper shortage!

COVID19

The COVID-19 pandemic meant that printing businesses had to be even more versatile for customers. Where many people would once get a prescription one month at a time, they were now getting maybe three to six months at a time which meant that demand was high. Things would stabilise and de-stocking then had to be done. Working with smaller independent businesses has its real advantages here as they can work closely with customers to understand this volatile demand.

Brexit

Brexit was a challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. One of our biggest clients, are the largest supplier to the NHS with 140 sites across the world. Brexit complicated things for them due to the ‘release site’ that has to be printed on the leaflets and packaging changing. The release site refers to where the product has been shipped from. The products were manufactured in the UK and then shipped to the Netherlands. At first the new regulations were unclear and whether they needed to include the UK address or the Netherlands address as the release site. Because of this, flexibility and working closely with customers was key. In fact, we worked with the Chamber of Commerce to train a team member up in exporting.

Predictions for the future

Although things in the world are currently uncertain, looking to the future, I can see the emphasis on environmental awareness continuing to be prevalent. The world-wide pulp shortage will continue, and fuel costs will certainly be affecting everyone. In fact, one of the large paper mills in China recently closed because it became too expensive to operate given the rising energy costs. It’s too early to understand what the Russia and Ukraine conflict will mean for our industry. We have a client based in Ukraine and now many of the client’s workers are refugees. Will this mean more production comes to the UK? We can’t be sure just yet.

Generally, the world’s population is getting older and the older they get, we take more medication to keep us alive. This will lead to an ongoing increase in demand.

I predict that the people and skills shortage won’t get any easier anytime soon, with businesses struggling to recruit good people in to fill the demand. What’s more, technology will continue to improve and adapt. We started the business in 1988, and technology has come a long way since then – it will continue to do so.