NEWS: Pioneer in Printing Passes Away

Davis played a significant role in educating the pharmaceutical industry on how to maintain quality when printing bar codes. In 2004, for instance, Davis offered this advice for companies preparing for FDA’s final bar coding rule: “Any new bar coding project must begin with the foundation of education,” Davis told PMP News. “Everyone involved in a bar coding project needs to learn about the bar codes, what bar code print quality is, and how to verify bar code print quality.”

Quality is important, Davis believed, because “bar codes save lives,” he wrote in Quint’s 2003 publication, “An Introduction to Bar Code Platemaking Quality and Verification Procedures,” which he wrote was “presented in the public interest.”

Quint Co. was involved in PhRMA’s groundbreaking Bar Code Technical Committee & Interest Group, which set out in 1990 to identify a bar code for unit-dose blisters. The group determined that Code 128 Subset C with a minimum 10-mil narrow bar could successfully be used to bar code blisters.

“Rich understood the role that clarity of print and, more importantly, the quality of the printed bar code played in the pharmaceutical blister marketplace,” says Jim Umbdenstock, Griffin-Rutgers Company, Inc. (Ronkonkoma, NY). “With the implementation of the FDA bar code regulations, Rich felt very strongly that the print plates manufactured by Quint Co. could quite possibly mean the difference in an individual’s health down to, at times, life or death. He therefore implemented every quality check possible within the platemaking process to ensure the accuracy and legibility of the print and bar codes.”

Davis worked with leading pharmaceutical companies to implement Code 128 printing and then later Reduced Space Symbology, now known as GS1 DataBar. “We have spent $200,000 in purchasing new bar code software, verifiers, and a flexographic proofing press to improve our platemaking process,” he told PMP News in 2004. The in-line printing process will need to be improved and controlled to achieve the goal of printing quality bar codes in-line, he added.

Rich Hollander, senior director of packaging services for Pfizer Inc. (and a PMP News editorial advisory board member), calls Davis “a true partner and pioneer in the pharmaceutical printing industry.” When Pfizer first decided to print variable information on small blister packs in machine-readable form as a means to improve patient safety, “we recognized that the importance of quality as the window of acceptability for machine-readable information is much smaller than for that of human-readable information,” Hollander says. “Pfizer went to Rich with a requirement for quality that others believed to be unachievable. Rich listened to our requirements and applied strong innovation to the quality aspects involved in the manufacturing of blister mats that would ensure a high quality level as well as a high degree of reproducibility from batch to batch. Rich’s efforts in this area allowed Pfizer to meet its objective of improving patient safety.”

Another PMP News adviser, D. Bruce Cohen, technical director, packaging technologies manufacturing science, engineering, and technology for GlaxoSmithKline, has much the same story to share about Davis. “With his knowledge and track record, Rich was extremely helpful to us when printing bar codes, for item use in particular,” Cohen says. “He helped us when we installed equipment, and he was really good at educating our team on production issues.”

Delmar R. Mineard Jr., Certified GS1 System bar code consultant, package engineering–development/launch for Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc., calls Davis “an excellent resource for many pharmaceutical manufacturers as we implemented unit-of-use bar coding on unit-dose packages to meet the FDA bar code rule. Individually, we presented bar code presentations at several conferences, and I was always amazed with his depth of knowledge and emphasis on quality. We lost an irreplaceable source of bar code knowledge, but more important was his friendship.”

Davis became more than a customer of George Wright IV’s, who serves as vice president for Product Identification & Processing Systems Inc. (PIPS; New York City). “More than a customer, Rich was a dear friend. The lessons he taught me, not just through his words but through his example, go well beyond just good business practice. We worked closely together for 6 years, sharing with each other our expertise in our respective fields and jointly promoting and implementing the FDA bar code rule for dozens of companies. We spoke to each other every week and often every day. I never met a person whose commitment to his employees and customers, his family, and his friends was so complete and who believed so passionately in the ability of his ‘little company’ literally to help save a life or possibly, if the job was not done right, to cost one! He was a voracious learner, a stickler for implementing the best cGMP he could devise, even if it made his product more expensive. And no one was ever more convinced that standardized bar codes—and their use on medications scanned at the patient bedside—were the key to patient safety.”

Succeeding Davis as Quint’s president will be Ed Howell. “Rich was amazing. He went out of his way to do whatever he could to help companies,” says Howell. “His knowledge is irreplaceable. I may never get to that point, but our mission here at Quint is to carry on his work.”

“I’ve had the pleasure to work with a lot of great suppliers during my career; Rich is one whom I considered a partner and friend,” says Hollander. “He will be missed.”

Davis is survived by his wife, Mary; children Zachary, Kariann, and Michele; father Richard H. Davis Sr.; and sister Carolyn Cannavo.