Pharma companies rely on optical sensor packaging & labelling to safeguard products: Manish Sahay
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
October 22 , 2021
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Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly relying on optical sensor packaging and labelling as a medium to promote and protect their products in the growing competitive market and to meet the new safety regulations, said Manish K Sahay, managing director, Leuze Electronic.
The sector is under tremendous pressure not just for mass production of medicines but its packaging too. They need reliable solutions to detect, measure and identify products during packaging. Over the past few years, labelling companies have made a strategic shift from the traditional serial numbers to advanced smart barcodes and random serialization, he added.
With digitalization, there is an increasing demand for functionality, convenience and sustainability in packaging and labelling. A robust packaging & labelling system controls defects. In recent years, track and trace technologies have evolved to offer new possibilities. In addition,unique barcodes and serial numbers have become the standard on a wide range of custom pharmaceutical labels, Sahay told Pharmabiz.
The Covid pandemic had a significant impact on the pharma and packaging industry resulting in approval delays as the sector moves towards self-sufficiency in supply chains. It is here Industry 4.0 conceived to transform pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging through digitization enabled the production plants to be operational during the national and global lockdowns.
The big advantage from an India stand point noted Sahay is that the country accounts for the lowest manufacturing costs in the world making it far more economical. We see the pharma industry being able to promote research and development of high-efficiency packaging solutions for pharmaceuticals that can help prevent contamination, provide drug safety, facilitate transportation and handling.
Plastic packaging too is popular because of its moisture resistance, high dimensional stability, high impact strength, tensile strength, low water absorption, transparency, heat resistance and flame retardancy, he noted.
Despite the promising opportunities for the sector, there are challenges of risk management in production process and quality systems. Maintaining product quality has become is extremely critical. As a result, it becomes challenging for pharmaceutical companies to identify possible risks associated with products and distribution processes, said Sahay adding that Leuze is first choice by most of the packaging/labelling machine manufacturers because of the company’s sensor-based scanners that ensure seamless clearances during marketing and distribution of pharmaceuticals.
Moreover, pharmaceutical packaging materials are changing continuously and with present technology there is always an issue to detect the reflective surfaces. Here Leuze’s DRT25 is game changer in detection technology and it can detect any material from transparent to reflective of any colour without need to reteach the sensor. Presently, this sector has become one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in India, Due to the pandemic, the demand for digital technologies like artificial intelligence and Internet of Things enabling robustness and speed are opted to fulfill requirements of both the pharma and healthcare sectors, said Sahay.
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