Is pharmaceutical packaging as important as the medicines themselves?

We all know that medicine has an essential role in our daily life because of its curing and healing power. In that case we don’t normally pay too much attention to the packaging of medicines. What is the secret behind the packaging materials of medicines? Let's take a closer look together.

Mini Instruction Book

Pharmaceutical packaging materials are divided into many categories, according to whether they are in direct contact with drugs, they are divided into a type of packaging material and a type of packaging material. The packaging materials for medicines are a simplified version of the instructions for medicines, and few people will read all the instructions for the medicines. Most of them use the printed part of the medicine box, the labeling part of the medicine bottle, or the printed text on the aluminum foil of the medicine board as a reference for the dosage. It is very important that the printed text is clear and easy to read.

Easy to transport

Medicine packaging facilitates the transportation and placement of medicines, and also prevent medicines from being physically damaged during transportation.

Natural Desiccant

Most medicines require "keep dry", "store in a cool place", etc. For some active medicines, low temperature is required and used (edible) immediately after disassembly. The most important role of the medicine packaging material is to maintain the effective activity of the medicine, and achieve the protective effect by blocking water and oxygen and other substances that are easy to deteriorate the medicine itself. Common packaging methods are aluminum-plastic, aluminum-aluminum, aluminum-plastic-aluminum, bottled and so on. These materials can provide different levels of barrier effects (choose the most suitable and cost-effective packaging materials according to the characteristics of the medicine itself), the isolation of oxygen and water vapor, and the maintenance of the effectiveness of the medicine play a very important role.

Beautiful and Easy to Distinguish

The pharmaceutical market is the same as the FMCG market. While focusing on the practicality of packaging, it also wants to increase its sales among homogeneous products through the aesthetics of the packaging. Even in the dazzling array of packaging on the medicine rack, it can still be found at a glance for regular customers.

High Industry Entry Barrier

Like the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, the pharmaceutical packaging material industry, especially the first-class pharmaceutical packaging materials (directly in contact with drugs),  has a very high industry entry threshold. It needs to obtain the certificates issued by the Local State Food and Drug Administration. Only after gaining the national drug packaging registration record can we cooperate with domestic pharmaceutical companies to supply pharmaceutical packaging materials.

For materials exported to foreign countries, the product itself needs to pass FDA-related testing, and the factory also needs to pass a series of preliminary run-in such as foreign customers’ factory inspection certification and product stability testing.

Further Challenge

Due to the development of the pharmaceutical industry and the promotion of environmental protection, new requirements have also been put forward for the pharmaceutical packaging material industry. Industry requirements, product updates, fluctuations in the raw material market, soaring shipping prices in the international market, and repeated epidemics are all posing new challenges to this increasingly mature industry.