Paris, 19th March 2019: The drug delivery and healthcare packaging industry is set for significant growth in 2019 as Pharmapack Europe (#pharmapackeu) – a key bellwether of industry health – welcomed a record 410 exhibiting companies and nearly 5,500 attendees from 75 countries. Europe’s biggest pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery event (Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, France 6-7 February, 2019) saw a diversification of innovations and new drug delivery solutions, with ‘patient-centricity’ emerging as the central theme throughout this year’s edition.
The event played host to some of the hottest emerging innovators in the Start-up hub – showcasing new technologies from AI development platforms and advanced data analytics to miniaturised packaging sensors, soft mist inhalers, and smart packaging.
Pharmapack is widely acknowledged as a window into upcoming industry trends with sustainability, eco-friendly packaging and smart packaging in particular earmarked for 2019. Highlighting renowned innovations, the Pharmapack Awards returned with a record number of entries, while the Innovation Gallery showcased a range of new technologies -from child resistant pumps, and anti-tampering labels to connected and dual delivery devices, disposable autoinjectors and Augmented Reality on smartphones.
The conference agenda explored major industry changes that lie ahead, including how to lower development costs whilst increasing sustainability. Gregor Anderson, Managing Director, Pharmacentric Solutions, suggested that “we could potentially further improve sustainability in device design and sourcing by working earlier with suppliers, so they can engineer out costs and environmental impact”.
But several of the sustainability panel’s experts also forewarned that primary packaging will remain a challenge, as it needs stability testing, which takes a long time to develop and implement. In particular, Guilhem Rousselet, Global Packaging & Serialization – Industrial Affairs at Sanofi added “there is just not yet any industry solution to replace PVC as the material of choice – we are still some way off this”.
Experts forecast that ‘closed loop digitization’, such as heart monitoring is the future, and the biggest challenge will be managing the integrity of the data created. Concerns around patient data were shared throughout the conference, with Alex Driver, Senior Consultant at Team Consulting, taking a particularly interesting angle on the situation. He believes that while people are concerned with how their data is being used, they still actively use connected devices, such as phones due to the value of the device outweighing potential concerns. He argues that if a patient is forgoing their privacy in order to use a connected device, healthcare companies simply need to incentivise patients to use the system by potentially shifting patient behaviour with optimum design
