Medical Device Link.

Originally Published PMPN November 2003

Viewpoint

John Bitner, CPP Independent Packaging Associate

The year PMP News began, 1993, marked the middle of my career with Searle. Soon after, the company would become Monsanto, then Pharmacia, and finally Pfizer.

The past 10 years can be characterized as a time of merger, acquisition, and transition. As firms have expanded, so has the role of the packaging professional. We have been expected to wear many hats and address many challenges. One difficult task has been the development of child-resistant, senior-friendly packages. 

The Institute of Packaging Professionals’ AmeriStar competition was very kind to me in 1993. A small physician-sample blister I designed won Best of Show that year. The blister was designed to prevent children from accessing the product, adhering to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) most stringent criteria of F=1.

This success showed that such an accomplishment was possible. Searle then established that all samples, from that time forward, would be evaluated to determine their potential harm to a child. As necessary, even in the absence of a law requiring it, all physician samples would be child resistant.

The 1998 revision of CPSC’s testing protocol raised the age range of the senior adults tested to between 55 and 70 years. By increasing the age of those tested, the government placed a new emphasis on the difficulty senior citizens have with packaging. 

The 1990s saw the 18- to 34-year-old segment of the population decrease by 9 million people. This change marked the first time in American history that the older segment out- paced the youth. The senior population, ages 64 and older, is now growing at three times the rate of the general population. Well over 44 million Americans suffer from chronic or temporary hand disabilities. Reduced hand strength and dexterity make it painful, if not impossible, to open the vast majority of packages. 

With today’s increased awareness, senior friendliness has become the impetus for consumer-friendly or universal design. CPSC’s revision brought attention to the incapability of many patients or consumers to open the very packages intended for their use. Marketers are being encouraged to adopt a higher moral consciousness.

In the year 2000, this message was carried around the world by the Wall Street Journal. Praised were the senior-friendly bottles and closures addressing biomechanics and diminished skills. The next year, PBS television broadcast nationwide a feature on child-resistant packaging as part of a Healthweek documentary. Today, new technology coming from scientists spanning the multitude of packaging industries is supporting the cause.

Impressive strides of discovery and commercial reality are being made not only in friendlier packaging, but also in packages that extend shelf life, human life, and the very life of our planet. Remarkable progress is being made with active packaging able to scavenge or emit oxygen, moisture, and odors. Control of the relative humidity within the package regardless of the external environment is also advancing.

There is fascinating work being done with intelligent packaging. These achievements include speck-like chips that can trace package history by encoding up to 96 characters of information. There are films that detect and respond to microbial growth.

The search is on for packaging that will deter bioterrorism, counterfeiting, and pilfering. And already we are witnessing gearless printing presses, electronic inks, and paperless labeling.

It is difficult to separate future from present as new discoveries are introduced rapidly. Interaction between the disciplines of packaging and the advanced sciences is essential to the future of packaging. Recently, I have worked closely with formulators in the development of new delivery technology. This partnership is a cohesive union of multiple disciplines. Mutual understanding, expediency, and cost-effectiveness have been the result. 

We have not yet begun to realize packaging’s potential. It is exciting to contemplate future discoveries that will most assuredly come from the packaging world. 

Copyright ©2003 Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News