Here they are, in no particular order:

Pharmaceutical Medical Packaging News

Pharmaceutical Technology NA

Pharmaceutical Technology EU

Pharmaceutical Executive

Food & Beverage Packaging

Packaging World

Healthcare Packaging

Packaging Digest

Pharmaceutical Technology online

Packaging Gateway

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-          NA label market is projected to increase to 11 billion dollars by 2013 (bigger than Western Europe and Japan)

-          The food market is the biggest contributor to label market, but this expects to change hands to the pharmaceutical market by 2013.

-          The US is the biggest producer and consumer of labels.

-          Canada consumed 775 million square meters of labels in 2008.

Interestingly enough the reason that the pharmaceutical will end up being the largest player in the label industry is due to all the new and changing regulations that are expected to take effect in the coming years requiring more detailed and extensive material be placed on these labels.

With the changes will also come the need for proper label inspection and packaging inspection tools. Automated inspection solutions will be come more and more important in quality control, regulatory and design departments.

There is more information available in a great article called North America: The World’s Label Powerhouse in the Sept. issue of Flexography Magazine.

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Docu-Proof, Global Vision text inspector

Digital-Page, Global Vision’s artwork inspector

Icount, Global Vision, insert counter

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-          More frequent inspection of food plants (a change from every 5 years to possibly every six months)

-          Companies will need to provide electronic records to FDA more frequently

-         The FDA will require safety plans for all food facilities

-          And the most important for most people; it would give the FDA the right to mandate certain recalls and hand out stiffer penalties when needed.

To read more about all the specifics of the bill, visit the Food Freedom blog.

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1. Sampling – In an effort to help connect the product with the consumer many companies are now offering samples out of flexible packaging materials.

2. Switch the shrink sleeve packaging – This frees up more room for FDA required information and eliminates the need for safety seal caps, in turn reducing costs and time.

3. Digital printing – Nutraceutical labels are constantly being changed in order to remain compliant. Digital printing allows for easy and inexpensive changes. Not to mention quality…

4. Resealable labels – Helps to balance between label information and company information so as not to lose branding opportunities.

5. Buy-one, get one free – A perfect way to cross promote product lines using shrink sleeves.

See the complete article at Label & Narrow Web.

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Daphne Allen and her team of experts definitely have some interesting insights in to the pharmaceutical industry and the latest trends relating to regulations, pharmaceutical packaging and much more.

Worth checking out…keep up the great blogging!

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As of 2006 the FDA made certain requirements for drug product labeling which meant an increase in the size of package inserts. They added the need for certain content to be present on the label and made adjustments to the font sizes and design requirements.

Now add European packaging, labeling and inserts to the mix. Not only are there strict requirements overseas in terms of labeling, but they also have numerous languages to account for. They are now considering the use of expanded content labels instead of having to have various SKUs for different languages. Phew…that’s already a lot to think of…

Just to extend it a little further now…in Europe there is an October 2010 deadline that specifies that some information be printed in Braille on cartons. This deadline will likely be extended even further seeing as there is still much work to be done to establish the proper guidelines as far dot height and measuring dot quality.

This brings up an interesting topic; with all these modifications to the package insert, how will they keep it accurate? What sorts of quality control or label inspection solutions do they have in place? And to even further that, will these changes ever stop long enough for a proper process to be put in place?

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Would you believe it if we told you that many key drug facts are left off pharmaceutical labels? Some of these facts could be life threatening, as is the case of a specific osteoporosis drug. If the dosage of this drug is increased slightly it could result in death. This critical information was not included on the label. Instead it was hidden in the FDA’s reviews, which are usually hundreds of pages long and filled with medical terms – making it impossible for a patient to find.

The FDA is required to approve the drug if the drug’s ability to prevent or cure a disease outweighs its side effects. It then becomes the responsibility of the pharmaceutical manufacturer to write the label and decide what information should be included. These labels have been known to play up the benefits and leave out harmful side effects. As the FDA is still responsible for approving the final label, drug experts are asking them to make this type of critical information more accessible to the public and to doctors alike. Fact boxes is what some experts are recommending. Dr. Lisa Schwartz and Dr. Steven Woloshin say that this will help patients to make more informed decisions, after all it is their health and they have a right to know!

See what else they are saying in Therapeutics Daily.

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After taking a sip of a Diet Pepsi a customer found something funny in the can… After dumping out the can, Mr. Denigris said it looked like “pink linguini followed by black stuff.” The FDA was called in to pick up the “foreign matter”, they confirmed it was in fact remnants of a toad.

Confident in their quality control process, Pepsi denied that it could have ever entered the can during the manufacturing process. The FDA later conducted an inspection of the manufacturing facility and said there was no cause for concern.

Denigris also said that after they gave the specimen to the FDA, Pepsi has neglected to call them or even issue an apology.

Could this have all been a hoax by Denigris or does Pepsi really have a bigger quality control issue on their hands?

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A few years back Global Vision was fortunate enough to have hosted the IoPP annual meeting with a full casino night. We had so much fun that are we are hoping to do the same for 2010.

For more information on IoPP, check out their website at www.iopp.org.

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