Fighting Noncompliance-and MRSA-with Award-Winning Packages

The Triquilar wallet by August Faller KG was recognized at the annual conference of the European Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council.

A wallet package developed by August Faller KG (Waldkirch, Germany) for a contraceptive sold by Bayer Schering Pharma AG in Berlin and produced by Schering GmbH and Co. Produktions KG in Weimar, Germany, has been recognized by the European Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council (EHCPC).

The Triquilar wallet is flat, portable, and reclosable. It has three sections: a blister card, patient information, and dry-peel preprinted calendar stickers to affix to the blister card to help users remember when to take the medication. Free space allows for personal notations.

The judging panel convened by EHCPC praised the package’s concept, which combines compliance with convenience to support proper use of the contraceptive.

Faller has won other awards for compliance packaging. It received the ProCarton/ECMA Award three times in a row. The company’s main focus is on pharmaceutical packaging, namely folding cartons, package inserts and leaflets, self-adhesive labels, and pharmaceutical services. It belongs to the COPACO and COPAPHARM Europe packaging alliances.

Other competition winners include Stora Enso Pharmaceutical Solutions’s Pharma DDS and DDSi and Protomed’s Biodose unit-dose management system.

Pharma DDS is a patented child-resistant compliance package that has achieved an F=1 rating in tests according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission protocol. Pharma DDSi can track and log patient compliance with printed sensors and application-specific integrated circuits that require little or no power.

The Biodose system manages both solid and liquid medications packaged in airtight pods that feature Bicote silver antimicrobial technology to lessen the risk of MRSA infections in hospital and other care environments.

Details on the winners, as well as on the EHCPC, are at www.hcpc-europe.net.