Variable data printing for pharmaceutical applications

An inno­v­a­tive new dig­i­tal print­ing solu­tion for blis­ter foils and sealed blis­ters for prod­uct seri­al­iza­tion in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and med­ical device appli­ca­tions: Domi­no Print­ing Sci­ences has announced the launch of the new K600G.
This print­ing solu­tion has been devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with inno­v­a­tive phar­ma spe­cial­ist Gal­larus and with input from life sci­ences indus­try expert SeaV­i­sion. It is the result of a suc­cess­ful team effort between dig­i­tal print­ing mar­ket lead­ers and life sci­ences experts, and promis­es to ide­al­ly meet the needs of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers now and in the future.

“In recent years, pack­age-lev­el seri­al­iza­tion has become a glob­al require­ment in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try. It is like­ly that seri­al­iza­tion of indi­vid­ual yards of a blis­ter pack will become the new stan­dard in the future to fur­ther enhance patient safe­ty and reduce med­ical errors. The K600G is designed to pro­vide man­u­fac­tur­ers with an on-site vari­able data print­ing solu­tion that includes item-lev­el cod­ing to meet these future needs.”
— Craig Sto­bie, Direc­tor of Glob­al Sec­tor Devel­op­ment at Domino

Using dig­i­tal print­ing tech­nol­o­gy to cus­tomize prod­uct pack­ag­ing with­in the man­u­fac­tur­ing chain reduces reliance on exter­nal pack­ag­ing sup­pli­ers. This allows phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers to respond more flex­i­bly to reg­u­la­to­ry changes or prod­uct label­ing requirements.
The prod­uct offers cus­tomized options for dif­fer­ent instal­la­tion types, includ­ing offline, near­line, top-of-line and sin­gle blis­ter cod­ing for direct print­ing on formed blis­ter packs, as well as an inte­grat­ed inline ver­sion tai­lored entire­ly to the needs of machine man­u­fac­tur­ers (OEMs).
“Dig­i­tal print­ing and flex­i­ble sup­ply chains are now play­ing a much big­ger role in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing — so the K600G is a nec­es­sary invest­ment to keep pace with future leg­is­la­tion and mar­ket trends,” explains Volk­er Watzke, EU Med­ical Devices Sec­tor Man­ag­er at Domino.
“As Domi­no cus­tomers, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers also ben­e­fit from our experts who are always hap­py to sup­port them in imple­ment­ing glob­al require­ments. We want to ensure that our cus­tomers are always in con­trol of their pro­duc­tion lines,” Watzke continued.
“In phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­duc­tion, code qual­i­ty and read­abil­i­ty are crit­i­cal. Giv­en the cost of unplanned down­time, it is also essen­tial that machines are always oper­at­ing at opti­mum per­for­mance. The new devel­op­ment has tak­en into account this nec­es­sary lev­el of reli­a­bil­i­ty and longevi­ty with regard to auto­mat­ed clean­ing sys­tems to reduce oper­a­tor inter­ven­tion and keep the sys­tem run­ning at opti­mal per­for­mance,” explains Bart Vansteenkiste, Glob­al Sec­tor Man­ag­er — Life-Sci­ences at Domino.
To achieve max­i­mum effi­cien­cy, the sys­tem can also be sup­plied with unique soft­ware — based on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence — that col­lects, ana­lyzes and learns from oper­a­tional data to pro­vide intel­li­gent man­u­fac­tur­ing solutions.
As a result, it can print at speeds of up to 75 meters per minute. Print widths range from a sin­gle print mod­ule with a print width of 108 mm to sev­en dual print mod­ules with a total width of 782 mm. With pre­cise print­head align­ment and image stitch­ing from the intel­li­gent i‑Tech Stitch­Link micro­mo­tor, seam­less print­ing across the entire web width is achieved.