GSK China

Developing and manufacturing a custom active packaging solution for a large pharmaceutical company.

Project Description

The prescription antiviral drug Hepsera has been on the market for over two decades and has helped millions of patients in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (HBV). GSK worked with a packaging supplier to manufacture both cap and screw bottle for the drug, however, they felt that the quality was not as high as it should be.  

The Challenge

The biggest challenge for Sanner was to create a custom solution that met all the requirements provided by GSK.  

Sanner recommended that GSK use the HDPE (high density polyethylene) bottle with a screw cap. Moisture protection is ensured by a desiccant packet inside the bottle.

Our Approach

When it comes to manufacturing the bottle and the cap, two different manufacturing processes are common. The cap is manufactured using a single molding process, whereas the bottles require an additional step in the manufacturing process. It combines injection molding and blow molding which is called the Injection & Blow (I&B) process. It ensures the production of high-quality plastic bottles that meet the requirements that GSK wanted. This does add a level of complexity that we solved by building a dedicated molding tool.  

Results

Sanner was able to translate GSK’s design into the mold. Our solution passed GSK’s stability testing that took around a year, before large scale manufacturing started. 

As a result, GSK has been very satisfied with our packaging solution and Sanner received a thank you letter.

Get in touch with our team today