Active and Intelligent Packaging for Pharma

Perhaps no more challenging packaging exists than those around pharmaceutical products’ regulations, stipulations, instructions and fill-in-the-blank-tions. Pharma packaging can be tricky business.

These challenges are driving active packaging to play an important role in the future of pharma. Active and intelligent packaging as a whole is expected to make up ⅔ of market share by 2025, but active-pharma alone is is already a more than $30 billion industry.

An August interview about intelligent packaging design published on pharmtech.com outlined the key role packaging plays in the future of healthcare:

“Patient adherence should be a primary goal … studies show that patients start off adhering to their prescriptions but this adherence can fall off over time [and] packaging can be a strong factor in getting patients to take their medicine. In the end, the final point of contact between the patient and the healthcare providers and/or the distributors of medicine is not the dispensing pharmacist, but the pharmaceutical package. If the packaging is difficult to open or use, or features confusing instructions, patient adherence is placed at risk. Thus, intelligent packaging and clear communication is crucial to improving patient outcomes.”

That is a long way of saying, “Good packaging design, messaging and innovation will help better patient care.”

We are only limited by our imaginations when it comes to active packaging. Take, for example, this interesting concept of a pill bottle that “goes bad” like a banana as it nears its expiration date.

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Or even edible tags that are invisible and don’t change the chemistry of the product, but can be used to spot counterfeits and track where pills came from are one cool new product offering. What about atmospheric tracking of bottles that alert you if the environment is too hot or too cold and could make the product unusable or QR codes that answer questions about the pills and side effects? Many of these technologies already exist and will only become more advanced in time.

Big challenges demand innovative thinking, and we are the innovation experts. Learn how Ernest Packaging Solutions can take your pharmaceutical and medical packaging to the next level with interactive designs and customer-focused solutions. Contact us today to learn more!