Sustainability Improvements to Pharmaceutical Packaging

Last year, we reported on one of Stevanato Group’s successful collaborations to help pharmaceutical companies bring innovative therapies to patients: The company teamed up with Gerresheimer AG to develop the EZ-fill Smart, a secondary packaging solution to meet the growing demand for ready-to-use (RTU) vials, syringes, and cartridges. Although EZ-fill Smart was not developed to work with Stevanato Group’s new reusable, wearable drug-delivery device Vertiva, EZ-fill cartridges can be used with both platforms.

We recently learned that the EZ-fill Smart uses second-generation bio-circular polymers originating from non-food crops and waste biomass. New details have also come to light about how the redesigned secondary packaging yields a greater-than-90% reduction of contamination risks during customer operations: According to Butta, the configuration of EZ-fill Smart involves a transparent polymer film in place of Tyvek.

The film is welded to the tub or tray so that it doesn’t leave residuals of adhesive, resulting in a significant particle reduction in the peeling process. Butta was unable to provide additional information on the alternative sterilization method used in place of ethylene oxide (EO).

EZ-fill Smart’s nest and tub configuration, as well as the tray configuration, are on track for availability in 2024.