Pharmaceutical packaging is to have its own category in the Starpack 2007 awards, the most prestigious awards scheme for the UK packaging supply chain.
The Award for the Best Pharmaceutical Pack will focus on innovative developments that address issues such as how to make packs child-resistant without preventing access by elderly and physically restricted patients; tamper evident features that ensure medication reaches the patient in exactly the state in which it left the manufacturer; product information; technical developments that ensure each medicinal item has a unique 'e-pedigree'; and patient compliance.
There will be the opportunity to win a Gold, Silver or Bronze Starpack Industry Award 2007 for the Best Pharmaceutical Pack, as well as in a number of other categories covering the food and drink and cosmetics and toiletries sectors, packaging design, environmental awareness, transit packaging, specific materials and technical innovation awards.
The 2007 Starpack Awards programmes will be held alongside the Total Processing & Packaging Exhibition 2007, at a dinner and cabaret to be held on 15 May 2007 in Birmingham. Entry forms will be available from November with closing date for entries 26 January, 2007.
The Awards programme is sponsored by RPC Group, Total Processing & Packaging Exhibition, IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining) and is run in partnership with the Wilmington Group, publishers Manufacturing Chemist.
In 2006 the Technical Innovation award was won by AstraZeneca, Jones Garrard and Perlos Corporation for the Zoladex Safe-System syringe.
The pre-filled single-use aseptic packaging and delivery system is designed to meet three objectives: to contain and protect the therapeutic drug during transit and storage; to provide an effective means of drug administration; and to offer automatic protection against accidental injury during the post injection and product disposal phase.
Created to help prevent the 1.5 million/year accidental needle-stick injuries globally the SafeSystem is manufactured using high precision injection moulded parts and a stainless steel coil spring. The syringe is pre-loaded with a drug and placed in a sterile bag. To prevent accidental operation a plastic safety tab has to be removed. Once activated the plunger and the needle retract into the barrel ensuring that the empty syringe is safe to handle.
Contact materials are HDPE and polystyrenes that have been cleared for compatibility and stability in contact with the drug. External parts are made to comply with patient safety requirements for high transparency, good mechanical performance, and polymer stability pre and post gamma irradiation.
The result of three years' development work by AstraZeneca, Jones Garrard and Perlos Corporation, the Zoladex SafeSystem is now sold in more than 100 countries.