Why Blister Packing Is Important To Pharmaceutical Industry?

Everyone knows packaging is an important industry globally, though only 4 percent of packaging spread in the global consumer healthcare market, packaging plays an important role in pharmaceutical industry.

As about ten to twenty years ago, many pharmaceutical companies, considered packaging as the final step in the manufacturing process.

But now this concept has been changed as the pharmaceutical industry face a number of challenges, and now packaging has been trusted as one of the most efficient ways of dealing with these challenges.

Actually,nowadays,packaging is slowly becoming an essential part of the drug delivery system as well as a core element of the marketing sector. Most manufacturers has regarded packaging as the most critical processing step through which they can differentiate their products with their competitors.

Apart from that, the demand for advanced packaging is increasing in pharmaceutical industries and this trend will continue to increase as companies rely more on packaging and labelling as media to protect and promote their products, increase patient compliance.

In fact,the ultimate purpose of primary objectives of packaging in pharmaceutical industry will help you to protect your drugs and medicine against:

Physical damage,

Mechanical damage,

All adverse external influences that can alter the properties,,

Biological contamination and degradation, and

Counterfeiting.

Besides,packaging also helps you to identify the correct drugs and medicine and you will also get the correct information of the drugs and medicine through manufacturers name, price, date of manufacturing and expiry, dose or strength, ingredients, instructions for the use, child resistance requirements, storage etc.

That is ,without packaging it will be impossible for you to get such information.

And nowadays,more and more designs of packaging are designed in various whatever attracting ways or original ways to control drug release properties as per the requirement.

You will not only get packagings help in transporting and distribution your drugs and medicines,moreover,you will get yoour product more appealing to your costomer as the beautiful designs of these packagings.

Blister packaging is a pre-formed plastic packaging that uses a backing card which usually has some featured artwork on it and a clear plastic pocket known as the blister.

Blister packaging consists of two primary components , the cavity - made from either plastic or aluminum foil and the lid made from paperboard, paper, plastic or aluminum.

The cavity contains the product and the lid seals the product in the package.

Why blister packaging is so important to pharmaceutical industry?

In pharmaceutical industry,you can use blister packaging pack your tablets, pills, capsules, granules or lozenge and also can use blister to pack different goods like stationary goods, pens, pencils etc.

What is the name blister comes from?The blister packaging name derives from the fact that each item packed in blister packing is contained within its own small plastic bubble, or blister.

Blister packaging is also called as a bubble or push-through-pack.

You will find clear plastic is used for packing the items and aluminum foils coated with adhesive bonding are used in the film which are heated together to form a separate sealed package.

Then why blister pack is important to you?

First of all,blister packs will provide barrier protection to your products’ shelf life requirements,and provide some degree os tamper resistance.

However,in the USA, you will find blister packs are mainly used for packing physician samples of drug products, or for Over the Counter (OTC) products in the pharmacy.

And in other parts of the world, blister packs are the main packaging type since pharmacy dispensing and re-packaging are not common.

That is ,blister packs also prevent in illegal manufacturing and use of the OTC drugs.

Besides,blister packing is also known as Push-Through-Pack (PTP).

The main advantages of unit-dose blister packs over other methods of packing for pharmaceutical products are the assurance of product or packaging integrity including shelf life of each individual dose and the possibility to create a compliance pack or calendar pack by printing the days of the week above each dose.

Blister packs are created by means of a form-fill-seal process at the pharmaceutical company or designated contract packer.

In blister packaging you will find two different types of plastic materials are uesed,like the poly-vinyl chloride (PVC), PET polyethylene terephthalate (PET), amorphous polyethylene terephthalate (APET), high density poly ethylene (HDPE), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) etc. and aluminum sheets or foils are mainly used.

In pharmaceutical industry two basic types of blister packages are used.

In the first type, the cavity is constructed of clear, thermoformed plastic and the lid is formed of clear plastic or a combination of plastic, paper, and or foil. The second type of blister package contains foil as an essential component of both webs, and its cavity and is created by cold stretching.

Blister packaging - an unique packaging for tablets and capsules

The blister packaging is an unique way of packaging for tablets and capsules in many ways.

On one hand ,blister packaging tablets and capsules can be packed in very controlled way.

On the other hand,tablet or capsule of rigid and fixed size is placed into a rigid cavity and flexible lid material is stamped over it to complete the package.

And you will find tablet and capsule lines can generally handle product with relentless consistency, therefore making defects very rare.

An interesting aspect to the blister package is that although each cavity is separate, it is also dependent.

If the seal between two cavities is breached, it does not compromise the sterility or quality of the product, unless one of the blister cavities has a leak to the outside of the package.

You know that with today’s new drug delivery systems, certain drugs are extremely sensitive to moisture.under which cases, within minutes of being subjected to normal room temperature and humidity conditions, the drug delivery becomes ineffective.

If there is a leak between two cavities, as the product of one cavity is consumed, the quality of the second cavity is compromised.

However,the most advantage of blister packaging for the patients is the convenient and easy removal of tablets or capsules by pressing blister and forcing the contents to backing strip.

The other advantages of blister packing are as follows:

Blister packaging is very light weight; and consumes less volume compared to glass which often used for packing medicine. These saves a significant amount of transportation cost.

Apart from these benefits blister packaging could offer,blister packaging will also provide better sealing to the medicines need to be store in dry moisture free environment.

Thus it extends the shelf life of your drugs and medicines which also can be stored for a longer time without damage.

And dose accuracy can be also easily maintained in blister packing.

Blister packaging can be easily automated to maximize the protection of the safety of packaging.

In addition to the high degree of process automation, there are a number of safety testing devices, including box and manual identification and detection that can greatly improve the safety and health of blister packing users.

In conclusion,blister packaging provides good quality sealing for the tablets and capsules. It is easy to test the leak test after packaging. The ease of packaging, testing, reliability and assured quality control make the blister packaging popular and its popularity is increasing day by day.