Medical Packaging

Medical packaging usually needs to be sterile. Handling products often need to be approved for use in clean rooms. Any re-usable item needs to be easy to clean. Specialist medical devices – which can often cost thousands of pounds – need to be protected.

Packaging can even help with ensuring that tools or equipment are not lost or mislaid – which can be crucial to patients’ health.

If any of the above is relevant to your business, then GWP can help. Through careful analysis of your current packaging products and processes, any weaknesses or cost savings can be identified.

And if you have never sourced a specific product before, an experienced team of designers will create a packaging solution tailored to your exact requirements.

GWP Correx® has a wealth of knowledge in producing clean room packaging and Correx® solutions for the medical and supporting industries. This includes manufacturers and distributors of medical devices and instruments, as well as hospitals and private care organisations.

Materials handling trays, divisions systems and re-usable tote bins have all proven to be successful for this sector when manufactured from Correx®.

Correx® is ideally suited to clean room environments as it is low-shedding, easily cleaned, is suitable for printed instructions or warnings and is very sturdy and durable.

Correx® boxes and totes can also be further customised through dividers and inserts or, for delicate and fragile surgical or metrological equipment, with fully bespoke engineered foam inserts. These solutions will ensure that critical equipment or instrumentation will arrive safely and in perfect condition, fully protected against mishandling in transit.

Besides this, by supplying specialist trays, Correx® inserts and dividers for storing and transporting vials, tubes and other equipment, Correx® handling products have proven invaluable to the Pharmaceutical industry too.

Other products suitable for clean room applications in the medical sector available from GWP, includes rigid plastic euro bins, trays and cases.

Correx® can be used for a variety of applications, as proven when the NHS approached GWP Correx® to manufacture some new packaging.

Instead of the usual requirement of trays or bins for the safe handling of tools or waste, Correx® was used to create boxes which were used as a “give-away” pack for young patients at one of the NHS’ oral health clinics.

The finished design was further enhanced with graphics, branding and key messages about the service.

It can often be of critical importance (sometimes even life and death) that any surgical or medical equipment and instrumentation arrives in perfect condition.

This is why many organisations operating within these sectors are increasingly turning to GWP Protective for their protective storage and transportation applications.

Protective cases with custom foam inserts are increasingly used in Surgical Instrument hire applications, where the quality of engineering and manufacturing standards guarantee a longer lifespan for cases subjected to hundreds of uses over a period of several years.

Perhaps more importantly than this, the foam itself can be tailored to the exact size and profile of the items to be protected. This eliminates movement during transit and virtually eradicates damage. This is particularly true when utilising software that calculates the exact thickness of foam required to protect against specified levels of shock and impact.

Foam can have a number of other benefits too. Shadow-foam can help identify any tools or equipment missing from a case. And, through use of colours and laser etching of logos, it can also help to present products if the devices will be sold directly to end users.

Focusing on products that are designed to measure body performance accurately, efficiently and in real time, BPM Pro turned to GWP to help them launch a new product into a very competitive market.

The “BPM Physio” was a brand new product, which for its’ launch required presentation in an attractive looking case. This involved not only selecting a suitable outer case, but also intricate foam fabricating techniques to ultimately create aesthetically pleasing presentation packaging for the company.

Initially, this included digitising the components and creating a 3D model within the CAD systems for initial proofing.  The main challenge was that there were lots of smaller items and the display of these in a neat, compact format (particularly leads etc.) was crucial.

However, the finished result was very clean and hid any messy cables, leads and adaptors, whilst also allowing all parts of the kit to be easily accessible and professionally presented.

Laser etching was also used to enhance the foam inserts, with a large logo being incorporated in an area that sometimes held a tablet and was sometimes empty. This complemented instructions and part numbers.

Jane Gossling, Manager at 270 Vision – the company behind the BPM Physio product – also commented on the excellent working relationship that developed between the 2 parties.

View a selection of the medical / pharmaceutical packaging products designed, manufactured and supplied by the different divisions of GWP Group. Please click the thumbnails for a larger view.

Besides the use of foam for protecting delicate medical instruments, with many also featuring complex and and specialist electronics there is frequently a need to protect items from static damage too.

With the UK medical market itself growing by almost 10% in the last year, the emphasis within the supporting industries has focused on the next generation of technology, leading to an increased need for ESD safe transit, handling and storage solutions.

GWP Conductive is widely seen as a market leader in the supply of ESD safe and conductive packaging products into the medical device industry.

In an industry where the reliability and condition of surgical equipment and instrumentation is of absolute importance, manufacturers of medical equipment are frequently contact GWP for ESD safe transit, storage and materials handling requirements.

This expertise in providing both stock and bespoke medical packaging solutions, re-usable Corriplast packaging and the SSI Schaefer range of conductive materials handling products provides businesses like yours with ESD solutions that not only have a longer life span, but also higher level of performance.

Ultimately, by protecting your products from static, you are prolonging their lifespan and avoiding potential problems caused by faulty or damaged equipment.

There are many occasions when medical packaging is required in volumes that make very specialised packaging (such as engineered foam and anti-static) not cost effective.

Fortunately, in situations such as this GWP Packaging has the experience, knowledge and expertise required to deliver quality, reliability and innovation corrugated packaging products that still meet the demands of the industry.

For example, by adding water and oil resistance, plus anti scuff and corrosion inhibitor to corrugated cardboard, it allows the creation of clean room packaging for medical instruments that may otherwise become damaged or contaminated in storage or transit.

This is in addition to transit packaging perfectly suited to shipping finished retail products or parts / components between manufacturing facilities.

This expertise in providing bespoke corrugated cardboard solutions, re-usable Correx® packaging and a range of specialist coatings provides businesses like yours with medical packaging that not only has a longer life span, but also higher performance.

GWP can provide you with a solution however specialist the requirement. From clean room to transit, and sterile to multi use, GWP can meet and exceed the requirements of your brief.

The medical and pharmaceutical industries have a long and distinguished history in the UK. From the establishment of Beechams way back in 1842 to the discovery of Penicillin in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming, the UK has long been at the fore-front of innovation and technology.

Following the Second World War, social healthcare systems such as the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) created a unified medical service with a more structured system for the prescription of medicines. The service as we know it today has a budget of roughly £116 billion – with one in five of the world’s largest prescription drugs being developed in the UK.

Home to both GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca (both within the world’s top ten largest pharmaceutical companies), the UK’s pharmaceutical industry directly employs around 72,000 people and is the UK’s largest export manufacturer worth £20.7 billion.

The industry so far has invested almost £4 billion in Research and Development and has contributed roughly £8.5 billion to the UK’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The majority of the UK’s medical manufacturers are based in the south of the UK.

In addition, the UK has the largest Research and Development (R&D) expenditure of any European Country accounting for 23 percent of the total. This is closely followed by France with 20 percent, Germany with 19 percent, and lastly Switzerland with a smaller proportion of 11 percent.

Put simply, GWP Group can offer your business the expertise accrued over more than 25 years in the packaging industry. This includes supplying medical and pharmaceutical companies of all sizes – from global brands to smaller SMEs alike.

This includes supplying Correx® packaging and easy clean handling products to the NHS. It includes a market share of more than 85% in the anti-static packaging sector – crucial for the protection of specialist medical devices and equipment. And GWP are one of the few companies in the UK that can accurately calculate the cushioning performance of foam inserts, offering your items the highest level of protection available.

Your company’s satisfaction is also of the highest importance to GWP. As such, you will have a customer satisfaction manager personally allocated to your business. You can call on design team with specific knowledge of the challenges faced by medical sector organisations. And all of your medical packaging will be manufactured in a clean, modern production environment.

By focusing on what your business needs from its packaging to be successful, a number of benefits can be realised. Analysis of your packaging and processes can often reveal significant cost savings. A fully managed inventory ensures you never run out of packaging and reduce storage space simultaneously. In fact, a huge range of services can directly impact your business.

All of this is achieved and delivered even within the most stringent deadlines, without ever compromising the quality or performance required of your packaging.

So whether you are looking to source trays, multi or single trip corrugated packaging, clean room boxes and cartons, or foam inserts for safe transportation and storage of your medical products / equipment, GWP can supply each and every one.

If you want to ensure that your pharmaceutical, clean room and / or medical packaging meets the highest standards, then please contact us at GWP Group today.