Permeability testing for sterile medical and pharmaceutical products

 

The permeability of packaging in the medical context, plays a unique role in ensuring materials remain sterile and that drugs stay contamination free.  This boosts long-term efficacy and shelf life.

One of the biggest issues in keeping medical and healthcare supplies contaminant-free (i.e. sterile), is the packaging.  Contaminants, and particularly water vapour, are very good at permeating through the actual packaging material where they can dramatically reduce potency, shelf-life and safety. However, a MINIMUM permeability is required so that the device can be sterilised in an autoclave or with EtO after packaging, but the packaging still needs to be liquid and contamination impermeable.

Packaging also plays a second vital role, especially in over-the-counter products as they need to accommodate the increasingly complex marketing messages and features.  The quality of these is primarily a function of the permeability of the material.

Versaperm’s, latest meters can measure permeability, which in turn can ensure sterile products, quickly, accurately and with minimal operator training.  Yet they are typically accurate to a few parts per million (ppm) and even parts per billion (ppb) in some applications. 

They can measure the vapour permeability of almost any material and vapour.  Unlike gravimetric measurements, which take days or even weeks, they can produce results in as little as 30 minutes for some materials.  This speeds the never-ending quest for ever-more effective packaging with new marketing and enhanced technical features. 

Our permeability measurement equipment can be used on very diverse range of medical products, containers, materials and packaging - including capsules, foil laminates and blister packs.  It can also be used for inhalers, syringe and analytical instrument enclosures and even allows you to measure the permeability of some substances that decompose using normal measurement techniques.

For a press release on the equipment to measure permeability of sterile pharmaceutical and medical products click here

For a press release on the equipment to measure permeability of sterile pharmaceutical and medical products and the way it increases their shelf-life click here

For background information on sterilization click here