Pharma SHR is a reclosable carton that is ideal for highly toxic drugs that require a high level of child safety while being very easy for senior adults to use.
Stora Enso is now working on several Pharma SHR packaging projects with drug companies and TestPak's decision to acquire the first Pharma SHR packaging machine will allow it to exclusively provide production capacity and contract packaging services to these companies, at least until other packaging firms gain the capability.
The first production machine installed at TestPak's facilities in New Jersey is a flexible, semi-automatic machine with a variety of package configuration options.
"This investment reflects TestPak's strategic commitment to compliance packaging, with a particular focus on child-resistant and senior-friendly packaging solutions," said Bill Eveleth, vice president of sales and marketing at TestPak.
"Installing the Pharma SHR solution is a significant step for us in offering our customers the most innovative and cost-effective systems available."
In child resistance, the solution complies with the European standard ISO 8317 as well as reaching the highest F=1 rating in the US and is ideal for unit-dose packages such as blister cards but can also be used for ampoules, vials, syringes and pouches.
"The reclosable outer carton provides full F=1 child-resistant performance, which means that package developers now have an unprecedented degree of design flexibility with the internal contents," said Eveleth.
"As a result, there are major benefits for user-friendliness, cost effectiveness, development lead-time, and platform consistency."
The market for smart pharma packaging is tipped to grow to $1.7bn (€1.3bn) in 2013 from the current $21m, as more and more equipment suppliers, material suppliers, technology providers, converters and printers come up with cost-friendly smart packaging solutions.
The growing population of middle aged to elderly people is also a huge demand side incentive to developing this kind of packaging, as well as the fact that each year, in the US alone, approximately 50 children under age six die from accidentally consuming poisonous household products such as medicines.