Equipment

Some truly innovative pharmaceutical packaging formats have arrived in the past couple of years. The SmartWallet, designed by Bosch Packaging Technology, promises to improve patient compliance while increasing product differentiation.

Altana’s wallet pack for its Pantoprazole product won a Red Dot international design award on the basis of its aesthetic and functional design, and Burgopak’s patented sliding packs are being used for paracetamol and ibuprofen on sale at Boots, Alliance and Moss chemists.

But these new formats can be a daunting prospect for contract packers and pharmaceutical manufacturers that have to adapt and integrate existing blister equipment with new wallet-pack kit or cartoning equipment.

According to David Dixon, managing director of pharmaceutical packaging machinery specialist Romaco, fully automated lines for this type of application are still at an embryonic stage.

At the moment, where novel cartoning formats are required, Romaco’s solution is to fill and seal the blisters using a Noack machine, then stack them in to intermediate cassettes so they can be processed through a carton or wallet line.

“In answer to whether we have a machine that can put the blister into a sliding wallet, right now, the answer is no,” says Dixon. “Could we do it? Yes. Integration of these processes is not too far removed from our high-speed cartoning, but it is a novel pack and it would need to be developed as a technical solution. The physical challenge is not daunting and, as the market drives us in that direction, I’m sure solutions will be developed.”

Achieving automation
Burgopak commissioned Sigpack Systems, part of Bosch Packaging Technology, to automate the production of its patented sliding packs, which were previously assembled by hand.

Andreas Gras, product manager for pharmaceutical production at Bosch Sigpack, said it designed a machine that takes flat, pre-printed cartonboard along a continuous-motion track, via folders, to a mechanism that wraps a plastic film loop through the centre of the pack to operate the sliding feature. Then it integrates a pre-filled blister before an information leaflet is glued onto a cartonboard slider section and the pack is glued shut.

The first system, which will be supplied to a UK contract manufacturer in October, will incorporate a semi-automated interface between the blister-packing process and the secondary packing operation, whereby magazines containing pre-filled blister packs are put in a specially designed rotary infeed – a configuration that suits the contract manufacturer as tablets are packed into blisters at a separate location.

Gras expects the first Burgopak line with a fully automated interface between the blister packing and wallet packing operations to be up and running by early next year.

“In fully automating the interface, the main considerations are how to design the outfeed from the blister machine and bring the blisters into a buffering system between the blister machine and the Burgopak line,” explains Gras. “The buffer is needed to achieve high efficiencies, otherwise if you have interruptions on the blister machine you will not be able to continue production on the Burgopak machine.”

Collaborative approach
The seamless and successful operation of such lines relies on close collaboration between packaging designers, blister packaging equipment specialists and secondary packaging equipment manufacturers.

Nycomed-owned German pharmaceutical manufacturer Altana openly admits that the success it has had with the launch of its Pantoprazole Mini Blister wallet pack is down to ‘sound co-operation’ between Altana and its machinery partners.

The pack comprises a wallet containing a smaller than usual blister card for a weekly dosage. Altana opted to work with IMA for the production of the blister cards, as it had produced traditional blister packs on IMA’s machines for many years. IMA specified its C80 blister machine, which was capable of producing blisters at the required rate of 300 per minute and compatible with any wallet machine on the market.

For packing the blisters into wallets, Altana’s decision to choose Schubert was based on a number of factors, including delivery time, changeover times, training programmes, experience in wallet products and the modular construction of the system. Schubert was able to work with the blister machine output of 300 packs per minute and produce up to 100 cartons per minute. Schubert also provided a smooth transfer between the blister machine and the wallet machine despite the fact the blister card was not easy to handle due to its almost square shape, light weight and small dimensions.

The IMA and the Schubert machines have separate computer systems but are operated from a single interface, and the start-stop phases of the two machines are highly synchronised.

Making packs child-friendly has been another key focus for pharmaceutical packaging designers in recent years, a trend which was given a boost when the BS8404 standard made child-resistant/senior-friendly (CRSF) packaging a legal requirement on certain blister packs.

Pill Protect of Tonbridge was quick to respond to the regulations with a child-resistant blister pack that it is touting as a cost-effective alternative to adopting foil laminates, which can slow the blister packing line down and increase material costs by 15-20%.

Pill Protect consists of a secondary ‘peel’n’push’ layer applied in-line to the foil backing of a blister pack.

Contract packer Brecon Pharmaceuticals was the first UK company to offer Pill Protect capabilities in-line. A purpose-built reel-holding unit and labelling head were integrated into its Noack blister packing machine by Romaco. A reel of labels supplies the head and single labels are then applied onto the top of the sealed blister pack, which is already formed and sealed. Both are then die-cut to produce a clean one-piece finish.

The system is designed to operate at 50 cycles per minute and five packs per cycle, with a maximum production of 250 blister packs per minute.

Besides accommodating novel packaging formats, blister packing equipment designers have been busy developing machines that better respond to the need for greater format flexibility and shorter changeovers, which is being driven by changes in production patterns.

“The shift towards smaller batches and shorter delivery times to satisfy customer and market demands dictates that flexibility with high levels of equipment utilisation will win hands down over the simple potential for throughput speed,” explains Romaco’s Dixon.

Favoured formats
Dixon says this has been the main driver behind the unwavering popularity among UK manufacturers of platen-sealing models such as the Noack 760. “The Noack 760 earned a deserved reputation as the workhorse of the contract packaging sector,” he says. “The machine is simple and highly adaptable for jobs from hand feeding to medium output at 200 blisters per minute – an ideal entry-level machine that continues to deliver return on investment as companies look for higher throughput without compromising flexibility.”

Similarly, IMA’s Giant1 blister packing/cartoning line was designed to meet growing demand for equipment that is geared towards the production of small and medium batches. Capable of up to 350 blisters and 175 cartons per minute, the line is only seven metres long. IMA also claims changeover times on the Giant1 have been reduced to “unprecedented levels” thanks to a limited number of size parts. It says the Giant1 can complete three or more batches in the time taken to change over any super-high-speed machine.

German firm Uhlmann, meanwhile, has focused on achieving maximum efficiency for batches of between 30,000 and 150,000 blisters in designing its Blister Express Center 500. Uhlmann claims the 500-pack-per-minute line, which comprises a B1550 blister machine, a MultiTab feeder and a C2504 cartoner, is the fastest single-lane packaging line in the world.

Features that contribute to this performance include: a floating forming station which ensures a continuous forming process; near infrared film heating for continuous and contact-free heating of the film prior to forming; and the MultiTab feeder, which is said to reliably feed all common types and shapes of solids, even those that shingle, as well as products of special shape or with varying thickness tolerances.

With the variety of equipment for producing blister packs as wide and adaptable as it is, contract packers are sure to find a machine capable of producing even the most complicated new pharmaceutical pack.

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LEAK TESTING
UK leak testing specialist TQC has developed a high-speed, indexing, rotary-table-based leak test machine for handling and testing up to 70 medical vials per minute.

The system incorporates Nolek S9 leak test instruments, 10 banks of test modules and two display panels, allowing the plastic parts to be tested 10 at a time.

The fully automatic machine uses step feeders to accept bulk, random product from a stillage. These two feeders then transfer parts to an in-feed mechanism to orientate and feed them in a 5x2 matrix.

The indexing table has four positions: one for loading, one for testing, one for unloading and a final empty station.

The unload system incorporates dedicated tooling to allow the parts to be placed into pass, gross leak fail or fine leak fail bins. A fail-safe system is included to ensure that there is no cross contamination of pass and fail parts. The system is PLC-controlled and interfaces to a PC for data logging.

The Nolek S9 is said to have taken air-leak test technology to the limit by combining the most sensitive pressure differential leak test valving with the most advanced front-end interface available. Its architecture enables up to five functional valve modules to be connected to a single front-end interface, allowing simultaneous testing of five volumes.