Four trends for the win: Bormioli Pharma showcases novel packaging concepts at CPhI Worldwide 2019

12 Nov 2019 --- At CpHI Worldwide 2019, glass and plastic pharma packaging producer Bormioli Pharma showcased several new packaging prototypes to address four key trends – usability, traceability, connectivity and sustainability. The company previously highlighted the last two trends at Vitafoods Europe and built upon this portfolio at CPhI. PackagingInsights spoke with Bormioli’s CEO Andrea Lodetti on the event’s floor to discover how the company is set to translate these packaging concepts into practical creations.

Usability
Ensuring easy-to-use packaging products for the pharma industry requires new, simpler and smarter ways to administer drugs. Lodetti emphasizes how usability is a novel concept, not taken into consideration by companies in the past.

Add-on cap.“Pharma companies nowadays are keen on looking at how the final user is interacting with the product. They take care that the packaging is both easy and safe to use, especially for people susceptible to diseases and smaller children,” he explains.

Bormioli has addressed consumer demand with an add-on cap on liquid oral drug containers to facilitate simpler and safer drug dosage and administration, both at home and on-the-go. A one-hand manageable syringe helps parents with liquid oral drug administration for babies and children. 

Traceability 
The increasing complexity of the pharma supply chain and the upcoming serialization regulations push traceability to the next level. Bormioli is creating tracking systems able to supply complex information all along the drug’s product life. 

“Today, there are a lot of drugs sold online. Some research indicates that more than 30 percent of them are counterfeited. We need to have the product packaging itself guarantee that the product comes from the correct company and the content is in line with the expectation of the patient,” Lodetti affirms. QR-codes incorporated into glass and plastic packaging.

Therefore, Bormioli is working on the construction of a non-editable, non-counterfeitable, technologically advanced tracking solution, that could be recognized both by industrial systems and by consumer appliances and devices.

Lodetti confirms the company is working on incorporating anti-counterfeiting codes into its glass and plastic packaging in order to ensure product packaging authenticity. Bormioli laser marking technology takes advantage of the whole volume of the container – both in glass or plastic. It allows the creation of a 3D complex code that can be compliant with the regulatory constraints but can also hide more complex codes and anti-counterfeiting marks, all in the same platform.

Connectivity
Lodetti highlighted the need for packaging to no longer just display product information, but also interact with the consumer. He muses about the possibilities of delivering more digital information and elevating the functionalities of packaging, which currently offers limited space to provide written information.Smart Shaking Cap.

“We have created an active closure, which is able to tell you if you have shook the drug enough before opening and if you need to do it more,” he explains. During the shaking, the upper part of the cap lights up to become green once the drug is blended properly. Bormioli makes use of smart technology by means of a dedicated app, notifying when the drug is ready to use. This innovation helps to better inform patients and gives them more control over their health.

Sustainability
Using fewer plastics is “good, but recycling is the real key,” Lodetti says. Plastics packaging is under heavier scrutiny than ever before, given current environmental concerns, but the pharma industry has not entirely made headway in this direction yet, he adds. 

100 percent pharma-grade rPET bottle.“We have brought a few items to the show that are made of recycled, compostable bioplastics to demonstrate that it is possible to store medicals in a safe way. We want to lead the industry in this regard and be the first company heavily showcasing and sponsoring this form of sustainable packaging,” he explains. 

Indeed, Bormioli exhibited cups and spoons fully degradable within 60 days in industrial compost facilities, green polyethylene (PE) containers made with 100 percent bio-based plastic as well as BioPET bottles, containing up to 30 percent of material extracted from renewable sources. In the recycled plastics arena, Bormioli featured its 100 percent pharma-grade recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (rPET), which performs the same way as its virgin material counterpart PET. This solution is compliant with European pharma regulations and is suitable for contact with food, the company notes. 

“The pharma industry is very conservative and it is complex to switch from one packaging to another, but it is definitely possible. We want to demonstrate that and lead the way,” Lodetti concludes. 

By Anni Schleicher, with additional reporting by Laxmi Haigh