pharmaceutical – TwonaBlog

April 17, 2023

Alternative solutions for pharmaceutical packaging to serve an ageing population (*)

(*) and those of any age with impaired visibility

By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over
World Health Organization

As the global population ages, the demand for medication will also increase. Already 10 years ago, some 87 % of people aged 75 years or more reported using prescribed medicines on a regular basis (Ageing Europe report, 2020 edition). This number is only expected to rise. As a marketer, I see this as a clear change in the target audience for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, a change that needs to be accompanied with support on the product side for the unique requirements of older people.

This includes packaging of the products, of course, which require innovative solutions to meet the needs of a new target group while providing all crucial and mandatory information, and do so in multiple languages.

Font sizes

One of the areas where improvements may be needed is readability of the product information. While the standard clear print size for fonts to be readable is established at 12 points, this is by far not the norm in pharmaceutical leaflets, labels and others, where sizes of 7 to 9 points are more the average (this can be even smaller for food packaging, but that is a story for a different post!).

Of course, it is understandable that they are dealing with space limitations to provide a very large amount of information that is critical (and non-optional). However, due to this criticality, it is of importance that the user of the product would be able to read it properly.

Solutions like Attach-A-Leaflet®, which allows for a multi-page label to be used in a product, can help with increasing the font size while keeping packaging small.

Images/illustrations

Another aspect to help with readability, is making the leaflets easier to decipher. In general, medicine leaflets are difficult to understand for the average Joe/Jane. If the average Joe/Jane is also on the older spectrum, the difficulty increases. This is why, using images in leaflets can help translate some of the complex terms into relatable instructions to follow, making it more accesible to a wider audience.

Creating clear, easy to understand, and attractive-looking images/illustrations that support the application instructions of medicines can suppose a significant improvement for the end-user. On the packaging design sign, adding illustrations to leaflets represents an extra layer in the packaging design; however, these illustrations do not need to be changed frequently, they can be outsourced or purchased to a third party specialized in creating these sort of materials (hint: we can offer you these services, but of course, feel free to do extended research).

Images of instructions to use a nasal spray — Image by Twona

Personalized packaging

Personalization is a growing marketing trend in multiple industries, as a way to distinguish yourself from competitors. In Pharma, this personalization may come with an added value of tailoring the packaging to the individual patient needs, through the use of technology. Think of including personal medication dosages, intake instructions, or reminders to take medication.

When thinking of personalized packaging, these are some of the forms it can take:

Pre-packaged Medication

The main use of pre-packaged medication is to dispense medication into individual packages, which contain information such as the patient’s name, administration instructions and dosage in a personalized label. The main objective of these labels is to ensure patients are taking the correct (amount of) medication, so the risk of medication errors is reduced.

Electronic Medication Dispensers

In addition to pre-packaged medication, technology can also make sure that medicines are dispensed automatically to the patient at specific times, reminding patients to take medication, and providing alerts if a dose is missed. Electronic medication dispensers can be programmed to this purpose.

Smart Packaging solutions

Another idea to make packaging of medicines more accesible is to introduce the so-called Smart Packaging solutions. These innovative solution utilizes technology to provide drug users with individualized information about their medication. These can be interactive features such as audio or visual instructions such as dosage instructions and potential side effects, that are specific to the patient’s personal needs. For older people who may not be able to read small print or forget complex medication regimens, Smart packaging can give users the confidence that they are taking the correct medication at the right time, reducing the risk of medication errors.

What types of Smart packaging can be used?

Interactive Packaging: videos, animations… in the form of augmented reality (AR) and accessed through a smartphone or tablet that can educate patients about their medication.
Near Field Communication (NFC) Packaging: allows patients to receive information on their mobile device about dosage, potential side effects, and other important information.
QR Code Packaging: Patients can scan the QR code, and access information about the medication, including dosage instructions and potential side effects.

Extending braille beyond the box

“The name in Braille does not have to be printed on the immediate packaging – such as blisters, ampoules and bottles, it only has to appear on the outer/secondary packaging, which is normally a carton”.
Guidance concerning the Braille requirements for labelling and the package leaflet

While not mandatory, extending braille beyond the traditional use of embossing it on the boxes, would make these more accesible to an older generation with – quite frequently – an impaired sight, giving the more independence to manage their medical needs in a safely manner . Here are some examples:

Blisters and caps: braille added on blisters holding individual pills or medication caps would allow individuals to identify medicines by touch.
Labels and leaflets: adding braille to the medication labels and leaflets would allow visually impaired individuals to access information such as dosage, expiry dates, warnings, contraindications, side effects…
Vials: the use of braille in vials could be limited to information such as name, expiry date, dosage

These are some of the ideas that come to mind in order to make pharmaceutical packaging design more accesible to the needs of the ageing population (although already without thinking about a user of age, the blind and visually impaired would benefit from these improvements on a daily basis!). Ideally, everything would be implemented in the future but I would be happy to see small steps towards that goal, and legislation coming into place to make more of these “nice to haves” mandatory moving forward. What is your take on this?

November 2, 2022February 3, 2023

Accessible cereals, leaflets, and more… for everyone

Photo by Tiard Schulz
Photo of cereal bowl with strawberries and berries

A few years ago, the Kellogg Company started a trial in partnership with the RNIB in the UK, to use a special code in their packaging that, using NaviLens technology, would read out ingredients and other label information to clients.

This trials, from I could read, originated in the US and actually are spreading – thankfully – to other countries. In July 2021, it was announced that this technology would come to Europe, amongst others to The Netherlands and Spain. I have not seen it in the shops of any of these two countries yet even though it was announced for Q1- I will be sure to triple check the shops this week to confirm.

You may have noticed that I am not mentioning visually impaired and blind clients when talking about the Kellogg’s example. They are the key group the trial started for, and the heavy users of the technology currently.

However, Jamie S. published a post recently with a statement that I believe so true! When we talk about accessibility and accessible products/services, very often the collective it is aimed at is mentioned as we are making the product accesible to them. But aren’t we all benefiting from those improvements? From a lowered pavement that allows you to move the baby buggy with ease, to subtitles on videos to not activate audio at work, to GPS on your car to reach your destination, … we all use them daily!

And this is why, I linked a few more things together in my mind.

Not long ago, our colleague Rafael Cruz Núñez published an article about what seems like the future of leaflets in the pharmaceutical industry. The article mentions how printed leaflets inside a box are likely to become a thing of the past. However, these are really important for health reasons, so removing them altogether is risky.

Pharmaceutical packaging is subject to many regulations, one of them is to include braille on their boxes to make them accessible to a larger collective and avoid the risk of mixing up medicines. But what happens to the leaflet? This contains the critical information needed to administer the medicine, and understand side effects. Implementing such technology on pharmaceutical packaging would contribute to making medicines far more accessible than what they are now. But, to be honest, this would help you too, as I cannot be the only one whose leaflets disappear or get damaged after opening the box!!

So, after making public transport, museums, and now also food accessible for everyone, maybe it is a matter of time before we see these colourful NaviLens codes in medicine boxes too??

October 22, 2022February 3, 2023

Leaflet digitalization in the European Union?

Photo by Danielle Rice - map of europe — **Photo by Danielle Rice**

If you follow us, you would remember an earlier article about changes in the pharmaceutical industry in the last years, around tools and technology for document management.

Was it an exponential change in the industry ?

Some examples of these changes are:

A paper archive/database
Tracing in an spreadsheet
Control of changes on paper
Email or Fax as project manager
Visual Artwork review

These types of processes are now a thing of the past, and are being replaced by Artwork Management systems, and proofing tools that take change management to a totally new level.

The change has been enormous and more changes could be needed due to agreements between the European Medicines Agency (EMA) , management at Medicine agencies (HMA) and the European commission projects from 2018, aiming at a digital transformation in sanitary support in the European Union (see the draft here: EMA)

This transformation has implications that are beyond my knowledge, but some of the phases that it entails were:

March 2017 – report from the European Commission with an action plan for the EMA to identify areas susceptible of improvement to satisfy the needs of patients and professionals.
2018 – collaboration between EMA-HMA-EC identifying the needs for a future digitalization.
March 2017 – report from the European Commission with an action plan for the EMA to identify areas susceptible of improvement to satisfy the needs of patients and professionals.
28 november 2018 – EMA runs a workshop with patients/consumers, health professionals, interested parties in the industry, academics, NGOs and regulators. This returned the key principles of this process.
February to July 2019 – public consultation with over 500 comments.

After reviewing these comments in relation to the key principles defined, a pilot program emerged in January 2022, aimed at evaluating the impact of the removal of the paper leaflets in a small portion of medicines for human use, within hospitals.

These medicines should include in their primary packaging a non serialised Data Matrix code that, once captured, would allow direct access to the digital version of the leaflet from the information allocated in CIMA.

The pilot duration will be at least 2 years, and it will be implemented progressively.

Would there really be a digitalization in health assistance in the European Union? I believe that after all the effort, this will become a reality. The only question is to what extent is the EU capable of coordinating for the big change of digital times.

And you, are you ready?