Across the world, vaccine companies follow three-tier – primary, secondary, and tertiary -packaging systems. The primary vial (contains vaccine) is a glass container, secondary and tertiary materials mostly are of plastic. However, in recent times, the global vaccine makers are following the best packaging practices and reducing plastic in the packaging, to the maximum extent.
Taking the lead in the Indian industry, Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL), which produces veterinary and human vaccines, has replaced the plastic materials completely in packaging its human biologicals anti-rabies vaccine – Abhayrab. With this, the Hyderabad headquartered company has eliminated 100% plastic materials in its secondary packaging, thereby emerging as a leading Indian vaccine maker to replace plastic with the sustainable eco-friendly paper packaging box. The company also replaced plastic in the labels of the packaging boxes and is using natural colors for this purpose which were earlier of PVC, again a plastic material.
Abhayrab, which is manufactured by the Human Biologicals Institute, a division of IIL, has saved millions of lives from its launch two decades ago. The company produces between 10 to 20 million doses of Abhayrab every year to supply it to the trade markets and the government which utilizes it for free distribution along with private doctors and medical practitioners to fight the rabies disease in the country.
“With the introduction of new sustainable packaging material, IIL is now able to reduce 170 tonnes of plastic every year, starting from 2020. The paper box not only replaces the plastic but also reduces the box size by 20%, thereby a huge cost saving in transportation and logistics as well. As the size of the boxes has been reduced significantly, the overall requirement of the vehicles to transport vaccines has also come down resulting in cost savings due to reduced fuel consumption,” said Prasanna Deshpande, deputy managing director, Indian Immunologicals.
The in-house designing team of Indian Immunologicals researched over two years to find the best fit for the replacement of plastic packaging boxes. Due to the non-availability of required robotic technology in India, IIL relied on a foreign partner to supply the machine which can do automatic packaging with paper boxes.
“With the introduction of sustainable paper boxes, the overall vaccine packing size has been significantly reduced. Due to this change in packing, the end-users have been benefited. Doctors/medical practitioners are finding more space available for other products to store in their refrigerators. The stockists are happy as they need relatively less space for the inventory – a definite cost-benefit for them. The new Abhyarab vaccine paper packaging box size has been reduced by around 20% with the new dimensions being 67 mm x 65 mm x 20 mm against the old plastic packaging box having 100 mm x 50 mm x 20 mm dimensions. As the paper packaging tray size is reduced, 50% more packs can be accommodated in the same space,” said Deshpande.