ACG Worldwide organises seminar on flexible packaging laminates

EPP News Bureau - Mumbai

From L-R: Dr. Erwin Pasbrig, Manager R&D , Pharma and Cosmetics at ALCAN; Karl-Fr. Buschmann, Head of Sales , Asia from Alcan; Ajit Singh, Chairman ACG Worldwide; S N Tripathi, Drug Controller Goa; Sterling Gabbitas, President Associated Capsules and Shyam Digamber, Deputy General Manager, ACG Worldwide

ACG Worldwide (Associated Capsules Group), in partnership with their principals, Alcan Packaging, Germany, organised an informative seminar on Flexible Packaging Laminates.

A residential event held at Cidade de Goa during September 23-25, 2004, witnessed participation from packaging, R&D, supply chain and senior management personnel of India’s leading pharma companies. The event, attended by over 100 delegates across the country, aimed at bringing together the end-users of pharma flexible packaging materials and the suppliers of materials to deliberate on the technical and developmental aspects of these materials keeping in view the significance and role of packaging technology in pharma products supply chain.

Alcan Packaging, the world leaders in aluminium-based pharma flexible laminates, made an extensive presentation of their product range and capabilities. ACG Worldwide team made presentation on their partnership with Alcan and demonstrated their support for Alcan product range.

Inaugurating the seminar, S N Tripathi, Drug Controller, Goa, praised the industry-friendly climate in Goa and India as a prominent global pharma sourcing base.

Ajit Singh, chairman, ACG Worldwide and Sterling Gabbitas, President Associated Capsules chaired the opening session on September 23. Ajit Singh stated that ACG is striving to maintain a dominant market share for Alcan in the Indian, Nepal and Sri Lanka and is keen to work with Alcan in other neighbouring countries.

Leading industry experts made presentations on the usage aspects of packaging materials. M Hemadri of Pack-World and Gautama Buddha, Head, Packaging Development, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, presented the industry perspective in the seminar. Hemadri stressed the need for intensive interaction between the users and suppliers of packaging materials and machines to arrive at optimum packaging solutions. Gautama Buddha explained the methodology of selection of pharma packaging materials and stressed on the need of achieving a state of customer delight to be successful in the modern competitive pharma business environment.

S N Tripathi , Drug Controller , Goa speaking on the occasion

Karl-Fr. Buschmann, Head of Sales, Asia region, Alcan, gave an overview of the capabilities of Alcan Packaging which has 90,000 employees at 90 manufacturing locations in 18 countries the world over. Alcan Packaging has six business groups covering virtually all sectors of packaging.

Dr Erwin Pasbrig, manager R&D, Pharma and Cosmetics at ALCAN, explained the concept of child-resistant blister and materials involved in this packaging. Dr Pasbrig delved on the concept of pinhole detection as one of the key quality issues amongst users of cold-forming base material. He made a comparative study of materials from various suppliers.

Alcan Packaging offers an anti-counterfeiting solution called N’Crypt, which is a special printing technology adopted from the sophisticated printing technology of currency notes. Dr Pasbrig explained various features of N’Crypt.

Alcan Packaging offers a unique packaging service — designing of cold-forming tools through a special software called STREC. The result of STREC calculation is optimised design of the cold-forming tool (plug and the matrix). This know-how of Alcan finds application in the manufacture of blister packaging machines.

Tropical blister, a unique packaging concept wherein a normal PVC blister is provided with an additional cover of an aluminium layer, dominated the discussion on the final day of the event.

Rajendra Khimsaria of Pam-Pac highlighted the concept and advantages of tropical blister, which enhances the shelf-life of the pack as a whole and hence as the name suggests this pack is suitable for tropical climate zones. Pam-Pac has introduced tropical blister packaging machine, the first of its kind to be launched in the Indian market.

In line printing was another topic discussed at the seminar. Alcan offers blister lidding foils suitable for in-line printing. An in-line printing machine gives good flexibility to a pharma company. Dr Pasbrig explained various in-line printing technologies and suppliers of such machines to the delegates.