Sealed Air at CPHI 2022: Protective packaging for post-pandemic biopharmaceutical demands

04 Nov 2022 --- Protecting medical and pharmaceutical solutions while driving up the environmental sustainability of packaging was a major theme at this year’s CPHI trade show in Frankfurt, Germany. 

During the event this week, we spoke with Roberto Righetti, European business development director for Sealed Air’s Nexcel brand, about how the packaging supplier is meeting the post-pandemic demands of its customers. 

“The main focus is on delivering bioprocessing solutions and offering a platform that allows biopharmaceutical companies to contact manufacturing companies. This is necessary to speed up and fill the space and improve the production of biopharmaceuticals,” he explains. 

“On the other side, we want to ensure environmental sustainability and the delivery of these platforms in sustainable ways.” 

Boosting biopharmaceutics 
Sealed Air aims to ensure consumer protection through a holistic approach, focusing on end-to-end supply chain processes and primary packaging protection for medical and pharmaceutical devices.

The Nexcel brand’s medical films are primary packaging solutions for pharmaceutical products, including large volume parenterals, dialysis, irrigation and specialty drugs. 

“We deliver highly specialized films for biopharmaceuticals ranging from very small applications to bioreactors but also to product transportation across the globe,” says Righetti.

Sealed Air’s biopharmaceutical pack.He explains there is a very high focus on vaccines and specific therapies after the pandemic, making the biopharmaceutical market a hot topic and a priority for Sealed Air.

Righetti tells PackagingInsights that the supply chain has been under a lot of pressure. “Sealed Air is moving away from being a global distributor toward serving regional demand, as we are experiencing increasing regional supply demand, and we are doing our best to support our customers to deliver that,” he shares.

Observing trends
As a major trade show, CPHI is a likely starting point for an innovation journey. “The trade show allows you to see all the trends and the future market direction,” notes Righetti.

“Sealed Air aims at reducing the environmental impact of their packaging solutions by including recyclable content and looking into packaging size reduction and improving the way we deliver our products by using better and new materials.”

“We produce plastic, but we are not the bad guys. We want to help and support the environment,” he adds.

The slow change to circularity 
Although not all of the company’s packaging solutions are made from recyclable materials yet, the European business development director says that it is working to convince its customers that including these materials in their packaging solutions is the best path forward.

However, the move toward more environmentally sustainable packaging in the pharmaceutical industry is slow.

“Especially when talking about primary packaging, regulations are very slow and take time to make changes. So that is the main reason why change is slow. It is slow, but it is happening,” says Righetti.

“There is more and more interest in and demand for regulatory changes toward more environmental sustainability in the pharmaceutical sphere.”

By Natalie Schwertheim