Analysis of the most popular plastic packaging for

Analysis of plastic packaging for medicine (Part 1)

Plastic pharmaceutical packaging has a broad prospect

in recent years, the market of pharmaceutical plastic packaging materials and products has grown rapidly, and new materials, new processes, new technologies and new products have been emerging. The emergence of many new products has improved the obsolescence of drug packaging. Drug packaging has been transformed from the packaging method of "several pairs of herbs and one rope" into a high-speed and fast mechanical packaging method; Its packaging form is also transformed from ordinary glass bottles, wax pill packaging, plastic bottles, etc. into composite plastic bags, aluminum-plastic blisters, etc. Among them, the production process of composite materials is divided into multi-layer coextrusion, aluminum-plastic composite, aluminum plating, etc

medical packaging materials include those used to package drugs or medical devices; Packaging materials that can be taken, in contact with drugs, or used as functional (such as moisture-proof, barrier, etc.) outer packaging, etc. Due to the development of polymer materials, plastic packaging materials occupy a more and more important position in medical packaging materials

as a packaging material, plastic has many excellent characteristics, such as high strength, good barrier, light weight, easy to carry, transparency and so on, so it has become the main material in modern medical packaging. In terms of pharmaceutical packaging, in addition to various plastic bags (including blood transfusion bags, etc.), plastic bottles, etc., it should be emphasized that the blister packaging of tablets is a new packaging developed with the help of plastics, which solves the problems of how many tablets to take and how many tablets to use, and how to affect the preservation of other unused tablets after taking

at present, the annual output value of the national pharmaceutical packaging industry has reached 15billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of more than 10%. In 2005, the demand for plastic packaging bottles for pharmaceutical tablets and capsules in China increased to 4billion. At present, aluminum, plastic and glass still coexist in drug packaging. However, the proportion of plastic packaging is rising rapidly, especially plastic bottles have occupied most of the market share of glass bottles

according to the American flexible packaging Association, drug packaging will become the second largest economic growth point of flexible packaging in the next five years. The report also pointed out that in addition to the strong development momentum of medical supplies, the packaging of medical supplies is also developing rapidly. The use of thermoformed extruded blister packaging with controllable dose to replace bulk or bottled drug packaging has begun to appear

at present, Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturers have applied for "production quality management specifications" (GMP) to improve product quality. With the further development of GMP transformation in pharmaceutical factories, some backward production equipment that does not meet the requirements of drug production quality will be eliminated, and drug packaging is becoming more and more rigorous in material selection. With the increasing popularity of GMP in China, manufacturers pay more attention to drug packaging materials, and plastics will have a lot of room for development in the drug market. Different drugs use different plastics, the most commonly used are HDPE, PP, PVC and PE

main forms and characteristics of plastic pharmaceutical packaging

the main forms of plastic pharmaceutical packaging include plastic bottles, aluminum-plastic blister packaging, strip packaging and bag packaging, which have accounted for more than 95% of the total packaging volume of tablets. Among them, strip packaging accounts for about 15%, bag packaging accounts for about 10%, plastic bottle and aluminum plastic blister packaging account for more than 30% respectively. Aluminum plastic blister packaging is in the ascendant, accounting for more than 30%, and is competing with bottle packaging. According to industry statistics, by the end of 2005, the demand for PVDC and pvc/PVDC, pvc/pe composites for pharmaceutical packaging in China had reached 60000 tons. There are many kinds of plastic materials used for drug packaging, including PVC, PE, PP, PS, pet, nylon, etc. Among them, PE, PP and pet account for the largest proportion, and the amount of PVC is decreasing

1. Plastic bottles (bags)

liquid drugs are mainly divided into injection, large infusion and oral liquid. Liquid drugs are mainly packaged in bottles and bags. Polyester plastic bottle is one of the most important pharmaceutical packaging materials at present. As a drug packaging container, pet has many advantages. First, PET bottle is light and firm, and its strength and elasticity are significantly higher than those of containers made of other plastic materials. It can withstand considerable impact without damage. It is most suitable for making drug packaging bottles with thin wall, light weight and high strength. With the same volume of medicine, the weight of PET bottle is only 1/10 of that of glass bottle. The volume of PET bottle with the same outer diameter is 15 times that of glass bottle. Medical PET bottles have good gas barrier property. Among the commonly used plastics, PET bottles have the best performance of blocking water vapor and oxygen, which can fully meet the special storage requirements of drug packaging. PET bottles also have excellent chemical resistance, and can be used for the packaging of all items except strong alkali and some organic solvents. The recycling rate of PET resin is higher than that of other plastics. When it is burned as waste, its combustion heat card value is low and flammable, and it does not produce harmful gases

plastic packaging is making breakthroughs in large infusion drugs. According to incomplete statistics, at present, there are more than 200 infusion enterprises that have passed GMP certification, and the production capacity of infusion is about 3billion bottles. There are more than 100 enterprises with an annual production capacity of more than 10million bottles. Some large infusion drug manufacturers, including Shuanghe pharmaceutical and Tianjin Otsuka, are using plastic bottles or bags to make large infusion packages. However, at present, 90% of domestic infusion is still packaged in glass bottles and soft plastic packaging, and the actual production volume is less than 200million bottles (bags). Most foreign infusion agents are packed in high-quality plastic bottles or bags. With the rapid development of polyolefin plastic bags and BOPP bottles in this field, this situation is changing

soft plastic bottles have been partially used in oral liquids, and their application scope has been gradually expanded. Hard plastic bottles are also slowly replacing glass for packaging large volume liquid drugs such as syrup, which is consistent with the development of Europe. The main reason is that plastic containers often have a wide bottleneck, which makes it easier to fill, and the production process on the filling line is also faster, which is not easy to break, and can provide a larger label area to carry more information

judging from the current application and development of medical packaging containers in China in a more intuitive way, under the specified high pressure wear conditions, we should speed up the promotion and application of plastic containers for pharmaceutical oral liquids. Its specification is 100 petroleum asphalt glass fiber tire waterproof coiled material gb/t14686 ⑵ 008ml~200ml. The raw materials used are polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and new material pen, including the development of high-quality pet plastic bottles that are dark and have scales on the containers or attached with measuring cups to replace low-quality glass bottles. As the pills, capsules and powders of traditional Chinese medicine in China have a large development space in the international market, it is also necessary to speed up the development of plastic hollow container packaging of traditional Chinese medicine. For example, plastic hollow containers made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP), pet, pen and other materials are used, and injection blow molding and injection drawing blow molding processes are adopted. The mouth of the hollow container is sealed with aluminum foil electromagnetic induction gasket to increase the safety protection of the packaging container for drugs, and eliminate the backward packaging of drugs with yellow round glass bottle sealing wax

China encourages the production and use of advanced non PVC infusion soft bag packaging products, but at present, there are only 28 relevant production enterprises and 35 production lines in the country, and the annual output is only 90million bags, which is far from the annual demand of nearly 3billion infusion bags. PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is the most common polymer used to make intravenous bag film at present because of its low price. However, its disadvantage is that the phthalate DEHP contained in its plasticizer is suspected to cause cancer and damage the reproductive system; Long term use can lead to the accumulation of harmful substances; Dioxin will be released during deep burial and incineration, which will affect the environment. Non PVC infusion soft packaging bag is an international brand-new concept of fully closed intravenous infusion products, which has been used in clinical practice in developed countries for more than ten years. Union Medical College Hospital has studied the adsorption of 15 commonly used Chinese and Western medicines, including insulin, isosorbide nitrate, paclitaxel, Xiangdan injection, with the most commonly used glass infusion bottles in China and three infusion containers made of PVC infusion bags and non PVC infusion bags. The results show that non PVC infusion bags are the best in safety. Although the adsorption of glass bottles is very small, there are some problems, such as backflow air pollution, crack damage is difficult to detect, rubber stopper powder falls off and so on

although it is generally believed that plastic bottles will replace glass bottles as the main packaging form of injections in the future, drug administration agencies in various countries are more cautious about using plastics because of concerns that the ingredients filtered from plastics may pollute products. The biggest disadvantage of plastic in liquid packaging is that the shelf life of drugs will be shortened after changing from glass to plastic bottles. The barrier performance of single-layer plastic containers is limited, while composite plastic containers are restricted by price factors. A compromise currently used in Europe, if not, please refer to the operating instructions by adding a plastic shrink sleeve to the glass bottle