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Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging News Magazine
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Originally Published March 1998

PHARMACEUTICAL

Folding Cartons Remain Sturdy

by Erik Swain, Senior Editor

Pharmaceutical folding carton suppliers face challenges every —dayfrom customers who demand increasingly faster service and higher-quality yet lower-cost supplies to other forms of packaging that threaten to replace cartons or render them unnecessary. Not only are suppliers meeting such client demands, but they are also standing up to formidable competitors like expanded-content labels, stand-alone tubes, and sophisticated labeling.

MAINTAINING MARKET SHARE

Several developments have been expected to decrease the need for folding cartons for certain applications. The advent of expanded-content labels and more-sophisticated inserts means that a label or leaflet could hold all the same information that a carton does, and more. The introduction of wide closures to tubes has enabled toothpastes and other products to be displayed on shelves without cartons. And prescription drugs, which don't need eye-catching graphics, may not require the marketing pizzazz of a carton.

While cartons may seem unnecessary for certain products, "There is nothing like a folding carton's presence on a shelf," says Janet Steiner, president of Thoro Packaging (Corona, CA). No other form of packaging, suppliers say, can offer as good a combination of eye-catching graphics and comprehensive information. That is why many carton suppliers report that pharmaceutical business has actually expanded in recent years.

Syringes can be removed singly from the rear of the carton. Multiple syringes can be taken from the top. Photo courtesy of Dividella.

"Folding cartons have the ability to convey information in more of a 3-D sense, with four sides," says Brian Gavin, vice president of Gavin Packaging (Ronkonkoma, NY). "It can provide eye-catching graphics as well as information to the consumer. I do not sense a decline in folding cartons because of the increased use of labels. We see growth in folding cartons increasing every year."

Vincent F. Kover, vice president of sales for Innovative Folding Carton Co. (South Plainfield, NJ), agrees. "We really do not anticipate any of the major companies eliminating their use of cartons and using a bottle alone to present their products on retailers' shelves," he says. "As competition continues to grow in the healthcare industry, manufacturers look for new and innovative ways to create shelf presence for their products. They are requiring that their packaging offer eye-catching graphics, innovative designs, detailed information, and quality printing. When bottles are not enclosed in a carton, they run the risk of dust on the bottle, torn labels, and overall poor shelf presence."

One factor in favor of carton use is the increasing number of drugs that are switching from prescription to over-the-counter (OTC) sales. When a drug first sits on the shelf, it needs something to make it stand out from its more-established competitors. That something is often a well-designed folding carton with sophisticated graphics.

"Look at the graphics on the folding cartons for a lot of the products out there that have gone from ethical to over the counter, such as Tagamet," says Edward R. Matson, vice president and director of sales and marketing at Howell Packaging (Elmira, NY). "The point-of-sale impact those cartons have is a tribute to the folding carton. As an end-user market, pharmaceutical continues to show and project above-average carton usage."

Interested in cutting packaging costs, the pharmaceutical industry has been increasingly influenced by the cosmetic and food industries, which have found ways to produce sophisticated cartons efficiently. "In OTC products, we've seen designs come over from the cosmetics industry," says Lorenzo Salvaggio, general manager for algroup wheaton (Montreal), whose operating company is margo. "As OTC products and generics fight for shelf space, the drug industry is becoming like the food industry, with concerns such as consumer protection, colors, schematics, and snazzy layouts."

Cartons for syringes consist of a monomaterial paperboard. Photo courtesy of Dividella.

Suppliers who have been able to adapt to client demands for higher-quality, lower-cost cartons have benefited from technology. "Turnaround time has definitely accelerated greatly—they used to expect cartons in four weeks, but now in two weeks," Gavin says. "Digital technology has helped us to close the gap between design and delivery greatly. It's not only because of the machinery but also the computer graphics. If we need to change a proof, the graphics program provides us with the tools to do it immediately, and go to press without losing time."

Also a great benefit, says Jim Hamilton, executive vice president, marketing and sales, for Colbert Packaging Corp. (Lake Forest, IL), have been narrow-web flexographic presses, which are "ideal for the small- and medium-sized drug package because of the print quality and quick turnaround you can achieve."

NEW NICHES

Carton manufacturers are even finding ways to take advantage of new trends in niches that are minimizing carton use, such as prescription drugs. Instead of packing ethical drugs into individual boxes, they may be packed into a master box in quantities of 12 or 24, says Hamilton. This is because of improvements in attaching literature directly to the individual products, he says. So, even if the need for individual cartons is obviated, drug companies will still need to purchase larger cartons in order to send the product to pharmacies or retailers.

Folding cartons are also an option for packaging ampules, vials, prefilled syringes, pens, and other liquid drug-delivery systems. Dividella Packaging Systems (Wareham, MA, and Grebs, Switzerland), a provider of machinery that forms and fills partitioned cartons, has marketed these cartons for such applications in Europe for years.

In the United States, liquid drug-delivery systems are commonly packaged using blisters, but in Europe, folding cartons are the dominant form of packaging, says Gerhard Breu, president of Dividella. There, cartons have a 60% market share and blisters a 40% share, but in the United States the percentages are about 10% and 90%, respectively.

Fluted partitions in Dividella's cartons hold products in place inside the rigid paperboard structure, which is an effective barrier, Breu says. The paperboard can be laminated to create a glossier appearance.

One advantage of using cartons, says Breu, is that the cartons are made of one material and therefore are easy to dispose of and recycle—a major concern in Europe, especially because of the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive. "It's not only a question of disposal costs, but of disposal volume," he says.

Dividella's main competitor is the blister package. No U.S. company makes cartons with fluted partitions that can be automatically loaded with liquid drug-delivery systems. It would take a new player some time to set up operations because the machinery is completely different from standard folding-carton packaging machinery.

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT

In the United States, environmental concerns sometimes take a back seat to other regulatory requirements. But some carton suppliers are trying to minimize their use of natural resources as well as their use of environmentally harmful ingredients.

However, opportunities to use recycled materials for carton manufacture are not as great in the United States as in Europe. One reason is that virgin paperboard looks slicker and glossier than recycled paperboard, which is a concern when packaging appearance tends to be the reason a carton is chosen. But there are other reasons recycled paper isn't always an option.

Carton print quality doesn't need to be sacrificed for quick turnaround. Photo courtesy of Colbert Packaging.

"Some drug companies do allow us to use a portion of recycled cartons," Salvaggio of margo says. "But that is not a general trend. They are very conservative. They cannot allow you to move away from the standard package requirement." He says this is partially because FDA would require new stability tests and revalidation, but also because "if you add new reagents or chemical compounds into cartons, you cannot afford to have them chemically react with the PVC [in blisters], which could change colors or cause problems if permeable."

There is a way around this problem—encourage the use of recycled materials during the packaging design phase. "On existing products, they already have been through the approval process and you cannot influence it after the fact," Salvaggio says. "So on a new product, our approach is to say, 'Let us work with you on the NDA (new-drug application) side.' We can help optimize the package—reduce the cost and improve the graphics—before the approvals. We now have to deal with three levels of the pharmaceutical organization: the marketing and sales people concerned about displays, graphics, and structure; the budget people; and the people on the manufacturing level. There are closer ties developing between the drug companies and packaging manufacturers."

Carton manufacturers are also choosing supplies that do not harm the environment. "Aqueous coatings have helped us provide our customers with a better and more environmentally sound product, because they are water-based with no solvents involved," Gavin says.

Apart from the obvious benefit of helping preserve and protect the environment, choosing nonpolluting or recycled ingredients also helps a company's reputation. Beck Carton (Milwaukee) recently received an environmental protection award from Milwaukee mayor John Norquist at the 1998 Mayor's Awards for Business Excellence. Among Beck's Earth-responsible activities are using printing processes and chemicals that result in the lowest emission possible of volatile organic compounds; recycling solvent, ink, paperboard, and trim waste; and turning down projects that would have required the use of high-polluting chemicals.

Drug manufacturers who choose environmentally friendly packaging supplies can also benefit. According to a study conducted by Environmental Research Associates (ERA), a division of Inte-grated Marketing Services Inc. (IMS; Princeton, NJ), half of all Americans change the brand of a product they regularly buy when they learn that the product, its packaging, or its manufacturer harms the environment. (See news story on page 8.) If drug makers use recycled materials or nonpolluting inks, coatings, and adhesives, they may attract environmentally conscious shoppers with environmental claims printed on their packages.

CONCLUSION

If individuals are predicting the death of the folding carton for pharmaceutical packaging, they are speaking prematurely. Advancements in graphics and manufacturing, among other things, have enabled cartons to remain one of the staples of pharmaceutical packaging. But competition is encouraging suppliers to provide more than just cartons these days. According to Matson at Howell Packaging, they are offering services ranging from inventory management and control to electronic data interchange to fill the industry's need for custom services. And in an environment of cost cutting, it will take such value-added services to keep drug packagers coming back for more cartons.