Informa Markets conducts seminar on intelligent pharma packaging

The pharmaceutical market is constantly advancing and pharmaceuticals need reliable and speedy packaging solutions that deliver a combination of quality, tamper-evidence, patient comfort, and protection.

The ninth annual InnoPack Pharma Confex, which focused on Pharma 4.0 and packaging, anti–counterfeiting, serialisation and track and trace, primary packaging, labelling, and printing, was held from 3-4 September 2020. However, it was held virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The two-day webinar also saw some solution providers showcasing new technologies, innovations and contemporary research and development in the pharma packaging sector.

Chakravarthi AVPS, global ambassador at World Packaging Organisation spoke about various ways to make pharma packaging "truly intelligent". He highlighted the two major issues faced by the industry, which are counterfeiting and medication adherence.

Commenting on the counterfeit issues witnessed across the globe, he said “The illegal drug industry makes around USD 163 billion to USD 217 billion according to the 2017 PWC report. Anti-counterfeiting packaging solutions are required for these issues to be solved.”

Talking about solutions for medication adherence, he said “There are applications such as ‘smart medication’ and ‘smart cap’, which helps in notifying the person that they must take medication at the prescribed time. These applications are made available for most of the smartphones, which will help us to decrease the deaths due to chronic illness”.

"Intelligent packaging should emphasise on better consumer engagement. It should aid in complete supply chain track and trace and blockchain technology. It should aid personalised healthcare and enhance brand loyalty," Chakravarthi added.

According to Chakravarthi, the packaging of the product should be patient-centric, but at the same time well within the guidelines.