Can mono-like polymer blisters maintain the shelf life of medicine?
EducationalBlister Packaging: Advancing toward sustainable solutions
2025-06-04 | 05:00 PM - 05:15 PM | TPSD Room
Information
Novartis owns a large portfolio of solid medicine (oral solid dosages). Their stability, shelf life is significantly influenced by the environmental temperature and especially, the water uptake during medicine storage.
Oral solid dosage forms are commonly provided as tablets and capsules and frequently packaged into blister cards. Thermoformable polymers play an important role here; their barrier properties can be tailored to protect the medicine adequately from moisture and the size of blister cards is smaller vs. aluminum based coldform blisters at attractive costs.
The current polymer standards at Novartis are PVC for low, Duplex90 for medium and Triplex180 as well as Aclar4000 for high moisture barrier applications. These materials get backed with an aluminum lid foil during blister processing and are successfully proven since many decades. Unfortunately, these blister types contain PVC, in case of Aclar even PFAS, and are not recyclable.
To support the sustainability objectives of Novartis, current thermoform blisters shall prospectively be replaced by mono-like polymer blisters. However, the development of such materials started at the end of the last decade first. And is it really feasible to achieve a medium and high moisture barrier level without applying proven barrier layers as PVDC and Aclar? Can mono-like polymer blisters maintain the shelf life of medicine?
This presentation will outline potential materials for mono-like polymer blisters, will demonstrate their capabilities in terms of moisture barrier and will show options to overcome potential limitations.
