PHARMACEUTICAL PACKAGING 

our pharmaceutical packaging ....

At Plastic Ingenuity, our pharmaceutical thermoformed packaging is completed in a state-of-the-art ISO Class VIII cleanroom.  Not only does this room eliminate environmental particulate matter (PM) from contacting the parts, it is equipped with its own proprietary part trimming equipment that eliminates any potential angel hair or PM without secondary part cleaning.  As a result, Plastic Ingenuity is able to control unit cost by not adding additional staff to clean parts.  

As a leader in medical thermoforming, Plastic Ingenuity produces a wide range of thermoformed products for the medical industry, which includes packaging for class I, II and III devices, as well as pharmaceutical and biological products.  The majority of products can be divided into three categories; trays, blisters and clamshells.  Finished products include: sterile barrier systems for implantable medical devices, surgical kit trays, unit dose packaging, work in process (WIP) trays and point of purchase packaging.   

Vertical Integration

Our vertically integrated systems provide a wide range of capabilities, including: Package Design, Engineering, Prototyping, Mold Building, Sheet Extrusion and Thermoforming.

Pharma Products

Plastic Ingenuity produces a wide range of products for the parmaceutical packaging industry.  Through the use of WIP trays and blister packs, and combination product packaging, Plastic Ingenuity is able to provide customers with top of the line packaging for their product.  WIP trays are used as a safe method of internally shipping or transferring pharmaceutical or device components from one manufacturing work cell or site to another.  Most of the WIP trays are utlilized in automated equipment and the ability to design and produce high tolerance thermoformed parts is critical.

Blister packs is broad area in the thermoformed packaging industry, however, when considering pharmaceutical packaging, a blister package would most likely be a pill pack or usage dose package.  This thermoformed package allows for multiple doses of a medication to be housed in one package, with foil or some form of closure feature on top.  A blister package of this type allows the consumer easy access to just one pill or dosage, while being able to purchase many at a time.

Research verifies that unit dose pharmaceutical packages increase the compliance rate of patients taking their medication, versus traditional bulk packaging in a bottle.  With technology advancements in medical device, pharmaceutical and bio-technology, these products are merging into multiple platform combination products, such as the drug eluting stent.  This new technology presents new packaging challenges, many of which need to be addressed by design and proper material selection.

Materials Used

Plastic Ingenuity utilizes various materials in the pharmaceutical thermoforming process.  An example of these materials is barrier material, which is used to minimize moisture or oxygen transmission into the package.  Another example of a material used in pharmaceutical thermoforming is Aclar which is crystal clear, biochemically inert, highly resistant to most chemicals, and sterilizable by heat or radiation.  Aclar is FDA-compliant and used widely in pharmaceutical, medical, and sensitive electronic packaging.  Another example of a material used in pharmaceutical thermoforming is cyclic olefin copolymers, or COC, which is a new class of polymeric material.  This new material exhibits a unique combination of properties which can be customized by varying the chemical structure of the copolymer.  This benefits performance by extremely limiting water absorption, having high rigidity, strength and hardness, and having good resistance to acids and alkalins.  COC can also be co-extruded with PETG, HDPE and PP.  COC resins are suitable for pharmaceutical packaging, medical devices and diagnostic disposables.  

Market Importance

The importance of a sound pharmaceutical packaging supplier is vital.  Pharmaceutical packaging is responsible for providing consumers with not only the best possible medicines and at home medical devices, but also piece of mind in knowing their product of choice is delivered in the safest, and most responsible manner possible.