With February right around the corner, pharma companies and their packaging designers are scrambling to meet the Falsified Medicines Directive. As of February 9, 2019, each prescription drug packaging circulating in the EU must feature a 2D data matrix code enabling wholesalers and pharmacists to track it across the entire value chain. The packages must […]

While the number of counterfeit drugs circulating the world is declining, the overall value of the counterfeit pharmaceutical landscape is bigger than ever. As counterfeiters increasingly focus on more expensive drugs, the pharma industry must turn to sophisticated anti-counterfeit technologies to protect its profit margins – not to mention its vulnerable target audience. Fortunately, as […]

Amid increasingly stringent security regulations and an alarmingly high number of fake products on the market, anti-counterfeiting technologies are the latest trend to take the packaging industry by storm. According to Smithers Pira, the anti-counterfeit packaging market is set to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.3 percent, reaching 3.6 billion USD by 2022.

Pharma packaging design is due for a makeover, thanks to a new EU regulation that will come into effect in February 2019. The Falsified Medicines Directive will cost the pharmaceutical industry more than 5 billion euros; a major investment for which patients can’t be charged. Reportedly 82 percent of manufacturers are taking the necessary measures […]

The pharma industry’s fight against counterfeit drugs is long from over. International investigations reveal alarming figures: at least 10 percent of all drugs sold worldwide are counterfeited, costing pharmaceutical manufacturers over 10 billion euros annually – not to mention the dangers patients are being exposed to every day. Called upon to help identify and prevent […]

Patient compliance, GMP compliance, anti-counterfeit measures, shelf-appeal, … Pharmaceutical packaging designers have plenty of boxes to tick before their design can hit the shelves, let alone sell, sell, sell! Still, every so often we come across a pharmaceutical packaging concept that stops us in our tracks. So, of course, we could not resist compiling a […]

The amount of counterfeit pharmaceutical packaging circulating the world is now bigger than ever, even creating what experts call a ‘parallel economy’ – with potentially deadly consequences. With counterfeit pharmaceutical packaging unlikely go away anytime soon, the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly turning to innovative covert and overt anti-counterfeit measures.

Designing packaging for pharmaceutical products is no easy feat. This article discusses key challenges pharmaceutical packaging designers are currently facing (next to GMP compliance).

When the EU Directive on Falsified Medicines came into force at the end of 2015, the EU gave pharmaceutical manufacturers three years to implement a new range of features to make their packaging GMP compliant. In the light of these increasingly stringent safety demands, we’ve put together a shortlist of three useful suggestions for pharmaceutical […]

Even though counterfeit medication rarely makes the news, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that it accounts for almost ten percent of the global illegal drug market. This number is expected to grow even more in the next few years. Besides taking revenue away from the pharmaceutical industry, counterfeit medication also takes its toll on […]