Bilcare Research Inc., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of blister packaging solutions, will showcase a variety of packaging innovations at Pharma Expo, September 28-30 in Las Vegas. At the show, Bilcare will exhibit its new FastPack service, an expedient process for determining the optimum blister film barrier properties for the packaging of pharmaceutical products, and ECOmply, an eco-friendly blister blending PVC film with a special additive that makes it biodegradable.
Building on the company’s expertise in drug stabilization, Bilcare’s new FastPack service helps packaging engineers and formulators of global pharmaceutical companies overcome the time and resource crunch they face when attempting to achieve successful stability studies. The science behind FastPack was devised from sensitivity profiling conducted on hundreds of pharmaceutical formulations over the past 15 years. The result is a scientifically streamlined process: In only 15 business days, FastPack identifies a product’s two most optimal packaging materials in terms of cost and barrier protection.
FastPack yields a greater than 90% certainty of passing a packaging stability study. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, this means reduced risk of both FDA approval delays due to insufficient package barrier properties and, conversely, wasteful and costly over-packaging.
Meanwhile, Bilcare’s ECOmply is an eco-friendly blister blending standard PVC film with an additive that makes it biodegradable, resulting in PVC-level functionality without PVC-level environmental footprint. ECOmply breaks down only under anaerobic conditions typically found in landfills, overcoming a hurdle in designing a cost-effective, eco-friendly blister package, as conventional biodegradable materials have problems withstanding mechanical, thermal and biological stress during blister forming and in-market lifecycle. ECOmply film has been tested for biodegradability per ASTM D5511. Initial results have shown 18.7% biodegradation in 45 days.
