Marketing Notes

With a special focus on healthcare/pharmaceuticals

Tylenol convenience packs are nothing to sneeze at

Receiving "excellent" feedback from consumers, according to McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, Fort Washington, PA, new Tylenol Day/Night Convenience Packs in Sinus, Cold, Flu and Allergy formulas provide a convenient way for consumers to purchase Tylenol's upper respiratory products for day and night in one package. Each convenience pack contains two smaller boxes-one designated for use during the Day (non-drowsy), and the other for night time ("To let you rest."). Each carton holds 12 blister-packed capsules, with a 234 version also offered for the cold remedy. Blisters, clearly labeled on back, are supplied by Power Print, while cartons come from Cardinal Health (www.cardinal.com). Carton graphics, designed by FutureBrand (www.futurebrand.com), make use of sun and moon motifs, with one half of the outer carton, in yellow, devoted to information on the day capsules, and one half, in blue, containing information on the formulation for night-time relief. Circle No. 301.

Milk makeover is bold

A redesigned label for Dean Foods Co.'s Milk Chug line makes no bones about capitalizing on the reputation of the Franklin Park, IL, producer's brand name. Notably positioned on the front of bright, new, full-body shrink-sleeve labels from Seal-it, Inc. (www.sealitinc.com) is the Dean logo, emblazoned in blue across a white swash that cuts across the labels' solid-color backgrounds. "We are very excited by the evolution of Dean Foods' designs for their Chug milks," says Sharon Lobel, president and CEO of Seal-it. "The strength and equity of the Dean name motivated the modification to the labels, and the label redesign places the Dean name in a prominent position." Flexo-printed on heat-shrink PVC using six to eight colors, the labels come in eight different bold background colors, each representing a different flavor. The Chug line is offered in a resealable bottle in three sizes-8 oz, 1 pt and 1 qt. Circle No. 302.

New carton gives orthopedic support products a lift

Crisp, clean and clinical, new cartons give orthopedic bracing and support products from DeRoyal, Powell, TN, the foundation needed for a sharp image on pharmacy shelves. Replacing a clear clamshell carrying an insert card, the .020 SBS cartons in a range of sizes were designed by Shelton Communications Group (www.sheltoncom.com) and an in-house packaging engineer. "DeRoyal is the number-one brand of supports and braces used in U.S. hospitals," says DeRoyal consumer product manager Aaron Long. "We wanted to capture this in a cleaner, clinical look with our new retail packaging." The cartons, printed in five colors plus an aqueous coat by Carton Service, Inc. (www.cartonservice.com), use a white background with red and blue trim, along with front-panel images that show the products in use. The new box design is used for 93 skus, representing 34 products, eight of which have never been offered outside of rehab clinics and hospitals before. Circle No. 303.

Copolyester is top choice for disposable labware

Labware manufacturer Nalge Nunc Intl. found a way to reduce product and overall system costs in one of its disposable flask lines with help from Eastman Chemical Co. (www.eastman.com). The flasks provide the performance of an existing material at a reasonable unit and manufacturing cost. The Nalgene sterile disposable flasks combine an innovative lightweight design with the versatility of Eastman's Eastar copolyester 6763 to deliver a completely disposable product. That's good news for budget-crunched research facilities. "We can offer NALGENE sterile disposable flasks at roughly forty-percent less than a competitive brand because we're able to use a cost-effective material and process that enable overall savings," says Dr. Dennis Gorlick, marketing manager of Nalgene Life Science.

Gorlick says Nalge selected Eastar copolyester because it lends itself well to many different processes. He adds that several companies manufacturing cell culture media use another Nalgene container made of 6763, so it made sense to use the same material for the flasks, which are used to process shaker and suspension cell culture further downstream. The sterile, disposable flasks are ready-to-use in gamma-sterilized individual packages. Thanks to Eastar's sterilized clarity, the flasks resist yellowing when exposed to gamma sterilization. Circle No. 304.

CR, senior-friendly pharmaceutical pack

Stora Enso (www.storaenso.com) and Bosch (www.bosch.com) have launched a unique packaging concept for pharmaceuticals with the PharmaPak SHR, a child-resistant, senior-friendly, high-compliance package that involves an automatic cartoning machine from Bosch, a new, novel package design and a specially developed paperboard material. To meet the growing demand for compliance-improving pharmaceuticals packaging, Stora Enso and Bosch entered into a strategic alliance in May.

The package meets ISO 8317 standard for CR requirements and aims for the highest child-resistance and senior-friendliness classifications in the U.S., says Ismo Saarinen, director of pharmaceutical solutions at Stora Enso. Suitable for the pharmaceutical industry, contract packers and clinical trial service providers who will use the services of accredited converters and printers, the package has high potential in the U.S., Saarinen says, which has the most stringent drug-safety regulations, followed by the U.K. and the rest of Western Europe.

The reclosable carton is made from a specially developed board CKB Pharma TR that's said to have high tear-resistance and a unique two-handed opening feature that makes it easy for adults to access but keeps contents away from the small hands of children. No special child-resistance features are required for the inserts because the carton is classified as a reclosable package," says Marcus Dehlin, research engineer responsible for the development of PharmaPak SHR cartons at Stora Enso.

PharmaPak SHR can be used for unit-dose applications, such as blister-cards, but it can also be used to contain ampules, vials and syringes. Thanks to its suitability for versatile unit-dose packaging and applicability for creative patient-guidance schemes, PharmaPak SHR provides optimal compliance performance. The Bosch machine consists of a carton-manufacturing module that can be combined with a semi- or fully automatic blister infeed and carton-assembling and sealing unit. The goal is to soon provide complete packaging lines with blister machine, cartoning machine and final packaging. Circle No. XXX.