Pharma packaging industry urged to develop elderly friendly, child safety solutions
The Indian pharma packaging industry has been urged to come up with effective solutions for child safety and elderly friendly packaging of pharmaceutical products so as to protect their interests and help in the growth of the pharma industry.
HG Koshia, Commissioner, Food and Drug Control Administration, Government of Gujarat said, “Pharma packaging is one of the important stakeholders of the pharma industry.” “Apart from the packaging, it also protects the product from the environment, it holds a lot of information, maintains the integrity of the product,” he said. “I have asked packaging solution providers to focus more on child resistant packaging (CRP) so that children do not accidentally ingest drugs,” said Mr. Koshia.
“The packaging has to be elderly friendly considering their illness, weakness and difficulty in opening bottles. Going forward the number of geriatricians will increase and suitable packaging should be developed through proper R&D.”
Stating that the pharma industry has to ensure safety, HG Ananthakrishnan, Director General, Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), emphasized on child-safe packaging so that it does not fall into the wrong hands.
He said innovation and sustainability will drive growth in the future. “Innovation is important because very sophisticated treatments will require sophisticated packaging, which will help preserve these drugs, maintain their integrity and make it available to patients,” Mr. Ananthakrishnan said.
He said that emphasis should be laid on developing eco-friendly packaging. “The question is how to make the packaging material sustainable without compromising on the quality of the product. Not every material can store medicine and retain its integrity. There should be no drug interaction with the ingredients,” he said.
Stating that the government reforms and increased demand have put the pharmaceutical packaging industry on a strong growth trajectory, Yogesh Mudra, Managing Director, Informa Markets in India, said, “The $1.4 billion pharmaceutical packaging market is expected to grow at a rate of 8.10 per cent. are supposed to. % CAGR during 2022-2027 and 7.54% CAGR by 2030 and reach a market size of $3 billion.”
According to Chakraborty AVPS, Global Ambassador, World Packaging Organisation, the future of pharma packaging will largely be driven by user-centricity and sustainability.