Gammapack - Plasma Packaging Reimagined
Creators: name: Liang, Shi Yi
name: Liang, Tom
name: Worku, Temesgen
name: Ahlers, Lisa
name: Mueller, Elena
name: Herzig, Ato
Publisher: name: Stanford Digital Repository
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Pharmaceutical packaging
subject: Takeda Pharmaceuticals
subject: Medical Labelling
subject: Product Design
subject: Mechanical Engineering
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: Pharmaceutical Industry
subject: Sustainability
subject: Plasma-Derived Therapy
subject: Biological Products
subject: Intravenous Immunoglobulin
subject: Changeover
subject: Infusion Therapy

description: Takeda, the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia, challenged our team to design a solution that would improve the productivity, cost and sustanability of their plasma packaging line. Plasma-derived therapies, which are therapies derived from human plasma to replace missing or deficient proteins in patients, is one of the six main areas of Takeda's R&D focus. Amongst Takeda's plasma-derived therapies, we focused specifically on intravenous immunoglobulin (IV-Ig). Takeda's IV-Ig product is also known as Gammagard. 

In our exploration of the design space, our team discovered three main issues with the glass vials Gammagard comes in today, which are label errors, bubble formation and a sand shortage. These are faced by the packaging line workers, nurses and pharmacists at infusion centers, and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole respectively. To combat these challenges, our team has designed Gammapack, the IV-Ig packaging of the future. Gammapack's design was influenced by the needs of all the different users involved and aims to eliminate or address the problems caused by current packaging. 

Gammapack comes with the medication filled in custom IV bags with a flat feature on the side designed specifically for labelling. Many of the challenges associated with labelling glass vials today are associated with the curved surface of the glass vials and the uneven surface caused by parting lines resulting from the manufacturing process. By providing a flat and smooth surface for labelling, the rate of defective labels will decrease. In addition, since the hanging feature is decoupled from the label in Gammapack, the adhesive used to attach the label does not need to be as strong, which makes it easier to remove. 

In addition, Gammapack benefits pharmacists and nurses in hospitals. Having the medication filled in IV bags, which are able to collapse on themselves, ensures that bubbling is significantly reduced during compounding and administration. In addition, on Gammapack's labels, the dosages are clearly and prominently stated for pharmacists to be able to quickly identify the dosage. 

Gammapack also helps Takeda meet its goals to reduce cost by 50% and increase productivity by 100% by 2030, and become carbon net neutral by 2040. The glass vials used today cost $5 per vial to manufacture, which is double the unit cost of Gammpack. In addition, by automating parts of the packaging line and reducing the labor hours required to correct label defects, the number of operators required per packaging line can be reduced from 7 to 4. Lastly, since pharmaceutical containers cannot be recycled and have to be incinerated, the carbon emissions associated with Gammapack are approximately 4,684 tons lesser than that of the current packaging. 

In sum, Gammapack is a packaging solution that is able to address the needs of both packaging line workers, as well as pharmacists and nurses in hospitals. In addition, it provides Takeda with clear opportunities to increase productivity, reduce costs and increase sustainability in their plasma packaging operations.