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P&G's Prilosec OTC packaging addresses consumer needs, sustainability

Prilosec OTC's redesigned foil-based primary pack is easier to open and requires less energy and material to produce than its predecessor. Redesigned outer carton delivers greater shelf impact without extra material.

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Procter & Gamble's John Eadicicco refers to consumers as “the boss.” So when some consumers provided feedback that it was challenging to open the company's Prilosec OTC peel-push primary pack, P&G responded with a push-through pack that provides easier opening, as well as economic and sustainability benefits—all without trade-offs in safety and efficacy.

Introduced last year, the redesigned pack replaced the packaging used for Prilosec OTC since 2003, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its switch from a prescription-only to an over-the-counter drug. (Prilosec is sold as a prescription-only drug outside of the U.S.)

Prilosec OTC is offered in 14-, 28-, and 42-count SKUs. The 14-day course of treatment is based on taking one pill a day for the treatment of heartburn occurring two or more days a week.

“Our number-one packaging consumer complaint was accessing the tablets from the blister card,” says Eadicicco, Section Head, Health Franchise, Global Package and Device Development (GPDD) within Cincinnati-based P&G. The Health GPDD group includes products that encompass OTC and prescription drugs, and medical devices.

The former peel-push structure made it challenging to open each blister pack containing seven omeprazole magnesium delayed-release 20.6-milligram tablets. “There were printed instructions on the pack that read, 'separate at perforation, peel at arrow, push tablet through foil,'” Eadicicco says. “We had perforations in the blister card to separate each cavity, and arrows pointing to the corners where the consumer would have to find the unsealed area, peel back the paper/film layer, and then push the tablet through the foil. So, there were multiple steps to access the tablet, which made it difficult for the pack to be both senior-friendly as well as child-resistant.”

Eadicicco explains that P&G conducted consumer focus group testing in an effort to remedy the challenge of opening the package. The company received feedback and observed consumers opening packs. P&G also worked closely during the package redevelopment phase with its trusted material supplier, Alcan Global Pharmaceutical Packaging.

Factoring in sustainability

Developing an appropriate structure for the Prilosec OTC package redesign extended beyond making it easy to open, senior-friendly, and child-resistant.

“We wanted to reduce our use of nonrenewable materials—cold-formable foil in this instance,” says Eadicicco. Another goal: increase throughput of the packaging machinery at the manufacturing facility that produces Prilosec OTC.

He refers to the redesign process as P&G's “journey in healthcare package innovation and sustainability,” he says. “Sustainability factors into everything we do,” he says.
A critical change for Prilosec OTC was to replace its two seven-count blister cards for the 14-count treatment regimen (see images above) with a single blister card containing 14 tablets, “without changing the footprint of the card,” Eadicicco says.

“To accomplish that, we did some unique things,” he says. “We changed the geometry of the cavity design to yield straighter sidewalls within the cold-forming process. We changed from a peel-push to a push-through pack to make it easier to open, while still meeting our established safety standards for child-resistance.

“We had some unique challenges. Foil has its limitations. You can only form it to certain stretch and strain points. So it was a challenge to make those sidewalls straighter without fracturing the materials and causing pinholes or cracks.

“Prilosec OTC requires high-barrier material properties. The moisture sensitivity of the product dictates that we use this type of material.”

Line process

Eadicicco believes the packaging redesign “pushed the known industry and technology limits to develop a new plug design and yet not create any kind of pinholes or stress cracks during the blister forming process.”

He explains that on typical blister lines for cold-form packaging, a pinhole detector is employed so that when it sees a pinhole, it rejects the package. “We design to keep our scrap rates low, which again goes back to the goal of no trade-offs. We had to address issues relating to safety, efficacy, and the production experience at the manufacturing plant,” where P&G uses an Uhlmann UPS4 MT blister machine for Prilosec OTC.

At the front of the Uhlmann multistroke machine, a roll of the Alcan formable foil is positioned on an unwind stand. The material indexes forward into the machine's blister-forming area where six 14-count blister cards are simultaneously formed. The foil then passes through an online pinhole detector that checks the base foil for pinholes. Next, the blister cavities are filled with one tablet per cavity. A vision system from Scanware Electronic GmbH checks the filled cards for missing or partial tablets and also checks the color, size, and shape of each pill.

Following the vision system, the Alcan lidding material unwinds and is heat-sealed to the filled foil blister material. The lidding material comes preprinted with the brand name, registered trademark, the active ingredient, and specific instructions on how to open the blister via the push-through process.

Next, a Nutec ink-jet printer prints lot and expiration date codes on the sealed blister material, which is then indexed to a die-cutting station. The web of material is cut into individual 14-count blister cards. One card and an insert are then placed into a carton by an Uhlmann C2205 cartoner, providing an FDA-required unique treatment pack. For the 28- or 42-count cartons, two or three of the 14-count cartons are then automatically placed into an outer carton.

Carton changes

P&G also made changes to the carton graphics that deliver a stunning shelf presence. Eadicicco says, “We look at graphics from the perspective that they are refreshed every few years. We wanted to enhance the graphics and give them a holographic effect and more 'shelf impression,' if you will.”

The refreshed carton graphics give the appearance of rays coming off the carton. “Our creative folks said if we could enhance the graphics with a foil backing, or a foil laminate on the carton it would make our brand equity stand out more,” says Eadicicco. “So we looked at ways to do that without adding foil material, considering that we reduced the amount of foil in the primary package. For the carton, we selected cast and cure [an optical varnish] that met that design intent. The new graphics have a holographic look and we didn't add foil or metalized film.” He credits carton supplier Ellis Packaging with supplying the optically varnished cartons that are erected, filled, and sealed on the Uhlmann cartoner.

Eadicicco says P&G tracks consumer comments and, as was the case with focus group studies done before the redesigned Prilosec OTC package hit store shelves, consumer response has been “very positive.” Satisfying “the boss” with an easier-opening primary pack meets P&G's primary concern, yet the redesign yields even more benefits.
Says Eadicicco, “We have reduced our packaging material by 800,000 pounds a year, so naturally there are cost savings, mostly in foil, but also in the paper backing on the lidding material. And, if you work backwards through the supply chain, incorporating less foil results in less energy used to mill the aluminum, and less energy to transport that foil to us. So the carbon footprint on the upstream process has also become much smaller.”

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