Pfizer's pack redesign offers patient benefits, line efficiencies

The package includes a daily tracker, functioning as a guide and diary to track goals and health improvement. The program also provides a tool to review progress with the physician over the 12-week course of treatment. A customer response card is integrated in the pack, allowing patients to complete a questionnaire and enroll in an interactive treatment program to ensure success. Finally, the pack includes full patient prescribing information. Tablets are laid out in a simplified 14-day regimen, including instructions about how to properly ingest the medication.

The IntuiDose package features a novel approach to providing the highest levels of child resistance while at the same time making the product easily accessible to adults. The simplified push-through design focuses on providing a consumer-friendly solution to medication management. The use of a unit-dose compliance-prompting package facilitates medication adherence and effectiveness of treatment, guiding patients to fill their prescription and maintain compliance over the course of treatment.

Production/packaging efficiency gains

According to Anderson Packaging, the transition to the IntuiDose design provided opportunities for gains across the Toviaz supply chain for Pfizer, most notably in packaging operations. The production of the initial Toviaz sample design involved a multiple-stage packaging system. Packaging was initiated with the primary packaging of the Toviaz tablets into a cold-formed blister design. In a second operation, blisters were heat-sealed into paperboard cards. Cards were then loaded into paperboard sleeves, ensuring the activation of the child-resistant feature. In a final operation, completed packages were bundled with patient literature and loaded into shipping containers for distribution.

Production of the improved Toviaz design utilizing the IntuiDose delivery system substantially reduced product handling through the simplification of the package assembly and incorporating highly automated packaging systems.

Like the original assembly, the process begins with blistering of the tablets. The improved IntuiDose design assembly reduces overall packaging operations to two steps. Upon the completion of the blistering operation, blisters are heat-sealed into a wallet format. Each piece of marketing and regulatory literature is applied to the package in an integrated process, with high-speed gluing and verification. The improvement in package design reduces material handling, decreases material consumption, minimizes the generation of scrap, and ultimately reduces processing time, resulting in logistical efficiencies.