Hygienic easy-open single-use packaging, a curb-side recyclable pharmaceutical shipper, a report card on senior usefulness (and other failures), and supply chain challenges caught your attention this year.

Based on page views throughout 2020, Packaging Digest presents its end-of-year list, in reverse order, of 13 top articles about pharmaceutical and medical packaging.

13. Pharmaceutical Packaging Scores Badly for Senior Usefulness

Do you agree with the grades packaging gets for not meeting the needs of senior citizens?

12. COVID-19 Could Change Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Forever

With a vast number of direct-to-user/patient shipments happening today in healthcare, especially as the nation battles the contagious coronavirus by complying with stay-at-home edicts, we are seeing unprecedented activity in last-mile deliveries. What challenges do pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies need to solve? How will this experience affect the future of pharmaceutical logistics?

11. Man Loses Sleep Over Failed Packaging Design

A graphic designer can use a variety of design tools to differentiate products in a line. An easy one is simply changing colors. That’s why this #PackagingFail never should have happened.

Eric Schoffner, owner and manager of iCareRX Pharmacies, uses the Axial machine from Euclid Medical Products to pack pouches of pills for his customers.

10. 4 Benefits of Packaging Automation for Pharmacies Amid COVID-19

Automated packaging machines that produce unit-dose or multi-dose pharmaceutical packs enable touch-free service, social distancing capabilities, efficiency, and improved patient adherence — key advantages, especially during a pandemic.

9. Building a Better Supply Chain Through Unique Device Identification

Class I medical device companies have work to do, despite the UDI enforcement delay.

Puerto Rico can increase pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging production quite easily.

8. Here’s How America Can Bring Back Pharmaceutical Packaging

Before the offshoring of the last two decades, pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging was vibrant in Puerto Rico. Guess what? The infrastructure and skilled workers stand ready for an easy reboot.

From left: Jeremy Elwell, senior principal engineer for Oliver Healthcare Packaging; and Brian McEvoy B.Sc. MBA, senior director for global technologies for STERIS Applied Sterilization Technologies

7. Balancing Sterile Barrier Packaging and Sterilization Requirements

The use of terminal sterilization for medical devices links packaging and sterilization decisions. Two experts tackle industry questions from a recent webinar.

Customizable ClimaCell box liners ship and store flat, saving on freight costs and warehouse space, yet can easily be assembled to create an insulated shipper.

6. Bio-Lab Boosts Sustainability with Curbside-Recyclable Shipper

New England Biolabs’ new ClimaCell cold-chain shipper maintains a strict temperature-controlled environment to protect the company’s sensitive biological materials, which are sent to life-science researchers across the country.

5. Medical Device Packaging Expert Talks Trends, Technical Developments

Amy Stewart, chairperson of the IoPP Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee, talks about sterilization trends and new industry innovation groups, as well as regulatory changes making a global impact and the concern of healthcare waste.

4. New Pharmaceutical Packaging Test Method Earns USP Approval

Now accepted by the United States Pharmacopeia, a new test method measures water-vapor transmission rate in pharmaceutical blisters with more consistent results than the current desiccant method.

With self-medication continuing to advance, patients and caregivers appreciate packages like autoinjectors that simplify the administration process. Photo credit: Sherry Young – stock.adobe.com

3. 5 Pharma Trends and Their Impact on Packaging

The pharmaceutical industry is changing at an unprecedented pace. New biological treatments for cancer, and a dramatic rise of widespread diseases such as diabetes, call for new processing and packaging solutions to fulfill the different needs all over the world. Keep your eye on these five main packaging trends for 2020 for the global pharmaceutical market.

Sealed medical packages maintain their integrity until opened, protecting devices such as pre-filled syringes.

2. Easy-Open Pack Addresses Single-Use Needs of Medical Products

Snapsil’s newer focus on the healthcare market leverages the pack’s hygienic and easy-open features for powders, liquids, solid dose tablets, and medical devices.

Versus larger bottles, unit doses of sanitizer packets were chosen to increase the number of users and safety. HR Pharmaceuticals plans to make four to six million packets weekly.

1. Fast and Furious: Pharmaceutical Company Makes and Packs Hand Sanitizer in Record Time

First-time sanitizer maker HR Pharmaceuticals gets a major assist from C-P Flexible Packaging in 10-day start-to-finish project in the fight against COVID-19.