New Guidelines Offer Menu Of Standard Sterile Packaging Tests

By John Kalkowski, contributing writer

High-risk packaging applications, such as pharmaceutical and class III medical devices, are coming under increasing scrutiny. A package protects the product throughout the product life cycle, and package integrity is a significant pocket of risk that can be mitigated.  Packaging integrity can literally be a matter of life or death to an ailing individual. It can have a significant impact on the well-being of a manufacturer as well.

This is a major reason that many pharma and medical device companies are intensifying their package testing and enhancing their test methods.  Visual spot checks performed by humans are being augmented or replaced by non-destructive quantitative test solutions, ensuring that the container closure system performs as needed. New test methods have been developed that generate quantitative data that can provide objective pass/fail standards for every package.