CP Packaging Branches into High-Value Oral Unit Dose Delivery Markets

How does a pharmaceutical packaging company stay ahead of its competitors? By developing new products for high-value markets while continuing to offer a broad range of packaging and labeling services. CP Packaging, a first-time exhibitor at the recently completed InterPhex show, has begun to branch out from packaging for personal care and diagnostic products into packaging tubes and delivery systems suitable for oral delivery and other unit dose markets. In addition, CP offers its customers packaging machines for situations where clients prefer to package their own products.

"We not only sell tubes and related packaging services," said business manager Lorna Runkle, "We also offer tube printing, filling, and sealing on a contract basis, as well as bottle filling, capping, wrapping, warehousing, and sterilization. For customers who prefer to do some or all of their packaging at their facilities, CP will sell them the equipment and set them up."

When she joined CP, Runkle studied the contract packaging marketplace and discovered it had grown at a rate of about 15% per year between 1993 and 1996. "These growth trends are expected to continue for some time because of the strength of new product launches industry-wide," Runkle told Pharmaceutical Online. "About 40% of all over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, 24% of devices, and 16% of ethical pharmaceuticals are packaged by contractors like CP." The biggest segment, she pointed out, is the OTC market, especially topical ointments, ear drops, eye drops, skin products, and vitamins. "That's where the action is right now," she stated.

One way to prosper in the increasingly competitive contract packaging arena is to innovate. CP does this by providing a wide range of single-dose packages, each with a unique configuration suitable for one- or two-substance delivery of either drugs or personal care products. CP uses FDA-approved resins that come in a variety of natural or opaque colors, all of which are printable.

CP's strategy of offering packaging machinery as well as services sets it apart from most contractors who focus only on providing services and end-use packaging products. By providing machinery, CP recognizes the desire of many pharmaceutical manufacturers to keep tight controls over production whenever it is necessary or desirable.

CP Packaging is part of Algroup Wheaton, a leading supplier of packaging products and services to pharmaceutical and cosmetics markets.

For more information: Lorna Runkle, Business Development Manager, CP Packaging, 1075 Cranbury South River Rd., Jamesburg, NJ 08831. Tel: 609-655-4880. Fax: 609-655-5718.

By Angelo DePalma