Printing for the Pharmaceutical Market

Printing for the pharmaceutical markets may seem like a really good thing to get into. With reports like "World Pharmaceutical Packaging to 2013," from Freedonia Group stating that world pharmaceutical packaging demand is projected to increase 6.3 percent annually to $62.3 billion in 2013, some might consider it a no-brainer to begin investigating. However, there are things printers need to know as they conduct their research. At the bare minimum, they must understand that printing for this market isn't like printing for Good Humor. "It's not like all of a sudden you can say, 'You know what? We don't have any business. Let's go attack J&J and try to get their pharma,'" says Lon Johnson, vice president, national sales, Colbert Packaging. "You can't do it. You've got to be there and live it for a long time."

Unique challenges

Every print job has challenges that must be overcome, but in pharmaceutical packaging, there are additional unique challenges that exist. For example, a printer must adjust its overall operations to accommodate the pharmaceutical business it has garnered.

Security is not only important for the brand itself. A brand owner will want to know what security measures the printer has taken to secure its operation. For example, Adam Scheer, marketing director for the Advanced Optotechnologies Group at JDSU, notes that, "There are now some commercial printers that cater to the pharmaceutical market that have some level of security in their plants in the way they do business, but many do not. That creates a complication because if the supply chain is not secure, and someone can walk out with [raw materials] at the end of the day to create knockoffs in a basement, then the whole integrity of the system is going to collapse."

Johnson adds, "It starts with having 24/7 surveillance throughout the entire building." The printing process also must be secure and accounted for. "For printing, you've got vision scanners, bar code scanners, and glue detection systems," he asserts.

Scheer states that background checks on employees, as well as being able to account for materials and supplies, means printers must open themselves up to audits. Johnson concurs. "All waste streams have to be secure. You can't just take your additional makeready sheets, bundle them and send them out to recyclers." Rather, he says, they must be chopped up, or sometimes the pharmaceutical brand will demand that the printer incinerate the sheets. "And, you have to have a videotape of the actual incineration," he quips. "There's a very tight screen on that as well."

Ensuring print integrity

Another area that will slow down your process is maintaining print integrity. "The most important thing that we see is consistency of print integrity—no missing copy, no obscured letters, and no filled in letters," says Johnson. "Which is why we've gone so far as to put in 100 percent vision systems to scan copy." He says that although these systems can slow the process down, they guarantee the quality of the print.

The graphics employed on the packaging also pose a challenge. "Even the non-pharma stuff gets complex in what they're looking for to sell it in the marketplace," says Johnson. "But graphics is where the design aspect will determine whether it can be run flexographically, that will determine backside printing, or the types of coatings."

These will impact the printer in terms of costs, because these issues often mandate more print stations. "It adds up to more print stations being necessary to do pharma work," he says. "Because if you're printing a big solid black, you may have to print two plates of it—one to keep the real tiny highlights and another one for the graphics side of it." Many times, adding security features will also require an additional print station. So, to an untrained eye, a package may look like a three-color print job. "But then you really get into the guts of it, and it may have two different coatings," Johnson continues. "It may have one for security, and it may have two different black plates."

All these variations will impact how printers integrate security features. Scheer contends that the lack of standardization in packaging makes it tougher to implement certain things, and slows the process down versus, for example, printing security features onto credit cards, which are all a standard size. "[There is a] much wider range of packaging elements and form types in the pharmaceutical market and infinite combinations when you think about all the different types of packaging elements and how they all fit together," he says.

Again with the shorter runs

An important trend in pharmaceutical packaging, according to Johnson, is that pharmaceutical brands are printing much smaller jobs, which means package printers must be able to accommodate these shorter runs. The reason isn't the usual "just-in-time" requirement. Rather, it's the regulation. "It's derived from the FDA's constant changing and adding requirements," he says. Basically, he asserts, as soon as you go to press, there are changes when you come back to the job. "And then throw in security features," he continues. "[These] are only good for six to nine months and then they want to change them."

Speaking of security, it's a reality in the pharmaceutical market. "I think if you want to be credible within the pharmaceutical industry as a full service printer, you need to be able to deliver security products," says Scheer. He states delivering security to customers creates differentiation for printers and adds tremendous value for their customers. But, to do so, printers must have the the other systems in place, such as 24/7 CCTV monitoring, the background checks, etc. "I don't think you can deliver security products unless you have these systems in place, credibly." pP