| By Grace Zhang, Asia Manufacturing Pharma |
| Friday, 27 June 2008 |
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Nearly all of the world’s top 100 pharmaceutical manufacturers have established plants in China. They have brought advanced concepts and standards to China’s pharmaceutical packaging industry.
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Some insiders expect China will experience strong growth in the pharmaceutical packaging industry in the next five years. At present, the production value of China’s pharmaceutical packaging industry has reached approximately RMB15 billion (approx. USD 2.15 billion), which can only meet approximately 80 percent of the demand from domestic pharmaceutical makers.
In consideration of the fast growth of China’s pharmaceutical industry in recent years, the production value of the pharmaceutical packaging industry is expected to reach RMB20 billion (approx. USD 3 billion) within a short time.
Two major factors have contributed to the boom in China’s pharmaceutical flexible packaging. First, pharmaceutical flexible packaging has advantages such as |
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rich materials, relatively low cost and high performance.
Second, the strong growth across the sector has created a good market environment. China is now updating its pharmaceutical packaging materials.
With the ongoing reform of the country’s medical system and the diversity of available drugs, flexible packaging formats have followed suit in their diversification. Packaging formats getting major play in the Chinese pharmaceutical market include blisters as well as flexible infusion, SP compound packaging and non-PVC infusion bags, among others.
Currently polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is the most common polymer being used for manufacturing infusion bags. However, as some safety deficiencies were found in PVC, production and use of non-PVC infusion bags is being encouraged in China.
Now there are only 28 manufacturers of non-PVC infusion bags across China, with 35 production lines and a combined output of 90 million bags, which is far from meeting the annual
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demand of nearly 3 billion bags.
Blister is now one of the most commonly used flexible packaging materials in the pharmaceutical industry. Along with the fast development of the packaging industry, more stringent requirements will be put in place for plastic film used in Blister packs. Growth of the blister pack market is expected to accelarate by 2010.
With further development of a GMP system in China, some out-dated equipment will be retired, and requirements for pharmaceutical packaging materials will become even more stringent. In addition, the demand for multifunctional and eco-friendly pharmaceutical flexible packaging will increase.
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