CPhI Conferences, a division of UBM India, hosted the 8th Annual InnoPack Pharma Confex on 21-22 May 2019, at The Sahara Star hotel in Mumbai. The well-attended Confex saw speakers and delegates from India and overseas. Over the two days, audience heard industry experts speak on a range of issues such as evolving challenges and solutions in pharmaceutical packaging like ensuring patient safety through packaging, technological innovations, insights on successful and compliant implementation for pharmaceutical packaging, etc.
This year, Ravi Udaya Bhaskar – director general at Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council of India, inaugurated the Confex and shared his views on the evolution of the Indian pharma industry.
The highlight of the first day was the panel discussion where panel members discussed the rapidly evolving regulatory environment and shift towards intelligent packaging. The panel members included Barun Dey of Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Sourva Mitra of Mylan Labs, Chakravarty AVPS of World Packaging Organization, Arun Kumar Bhattacharya of Takeda Pharma and Dr. Bharati Nadkarni of Sun Pharma.
Following the panel discussion was a presentation on the latest trend in primary packaging solutions for generic injectables and needle safety systems by Milagro Lopez and Kok Li Kwang of West.
Sanjay Sonar of Optel Group spoke about the end-to-end traceability and how it can be leveraged in packaging, digitization and disruption. He also compared the traditional supply chain model and the integrated supply chain model. According to Sonar, the integrated supply chain model offers the complete view of the supply chain; it makes available all the information to supply chain members simultaneously. Other advantages that integrated supply chain model offers over the traditional model include rapid assessment of end customer demand change and real-time response.
Other topics discussed during the first day included design and performance of cartridge solutions, compression blow forming, which is a new way of container manufacturing, and capex-free sourcing of renewable power.
The second day started with a panel discussion on the importance of connected devices in improving patient experiences. After the panel discussion, Rohit Mehta of SMI Coated Products informed the audience about how customers should select the right label stock. Manoj Padhy of Huhtamaki-PPL talked about labels for sustainable business.
During the next session the highlight was a talk by Umesh Kagade of HP on how digital printing can help brand owners ensure security and brand protection. He informed the audience about the HP Indigo technology and the various security solutions that can be achieved with it.
During the post lunch session on the second day, Avinash Bangale of Mamta Machinery talked about powder packaging in pouches. He spoke about the concerns in sachet packing, multitrack and form fill seal machines, four side seal sachets, appropriate filling systems for filling accuracy and machine speed, and accuracy optimization.
The day closed with a talk on barcode compliance and verification by Sivasankar Nagarajan, chief executive officer of Sandilyam Automation Systems.
