Pfizer's pack redesign offers patient benefits, line efficiencies

After receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in October 2008, Pfizer launched its overactive bladder (OAB) treatment Toviaz™ in a carded blister housed in a paperboard outer sleeve and bundled with regulatory literature for presentation to consumers by prescribing physicians.

Last year, Pfizer worked with AmerisourceBergen company Anderson Packaging to transition to Anderson’s proprietary IntuiDose™ child-resistant compliance-prompting format for the physician’s sample package. The four-panel wallet pack contains 14 8-mg doses. The user pushes each pill out of each blister cavity from a three-ply cold-formed base film. The lidding is a 15#, paper-supported, push-through 0.008 foil. The pack uses a 16-pt board stock, coated on two sides (C2S), with a heat-seal coating applied on press during printing to help reduce overall cost and material use. Also, there are 4-mg and 8-mg strength versions, distinguished by an orange or green color scheme.

The Toviaz pack recently was honored as the 2009 Compliance Package of the Year by the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council, and as the first Distribution Management Award-winner by the Healthcare Distribution Management Assn.

The new pack allows Pfizer to deliver Toviaz in a more effective and informative patient-friendly format, at the same time achieving substantial production efficiencies and cost reductions.

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