But pharmacies receiving the container felt it was too small to accept their house label. So most of them would empty the bottle and replace it with a standard pharmaceutical vial that they could then label. Pharmacists didn't care for this process, and neither did Glaxo Wellcome. "Their vials have no liner, no moisture barrier, nothing," says D. Bruce Cohen, Glaxo Wellcome's director of packaging technology. "With our bottle/closure/liner combination, we know we've provided the required moisture protection over the life of the product." Glaxo Wellcome solved the problem by devising a two-in-one container consisting of an inner 30-cc container that's permanently sealed inside an 80-cc outer shell with deadspace in between. The two-in-one bottle is dubbed Cameo® by its manufacturer, Drug Plastics (Boyertown, PA), which co-invented the patented container with Glaxo Wellcome two years ago. The solution works well: pharmacists can now affix their labels to the larger outer container, Glaxo Wellcome gets its needed moisture protection, and everyone's happy. But wait a minute. Why not fill small counts directly into a standard 80-cc container? "Sure, we could do that," counters Cohen. "But pharmacists are uncomfortable with it. If you dispense that to a customer, they're going to ask some questions, like why are you giving me this bottle if it's empty? You're putting out a rattle, basically." Adding cotton to occupy the empty space wasn't an option. That would have meant two additional years for a new FDA approval, since the cotton would be considered an additive under the agency's rules. "This [bottle] allowed us to get on the market very quickly," says Cohen.
Two-in-one bottle an interesting solution
For years, Glaxo Wellcome had used generic 30-cc high-density polyethylene pharmaceutical bottles to hold 60 tablets of its prescription-only Zantac® medication.
Aug 31, 1996
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