Smart drug pack doing CRO rounds
collaboration with Cypak, a Swedish company specialising in the
development of 'smart' packaging.
The two companies entered into an agreement earlier this year to make use of Cypak's printed paperboard computer technology in a new type of medication pack that would allow the usage of drugs to be monitored in clinical trials.
Now, the Cerepak has been completed and is already being trialled by clinical research organisations. MeadWestvaco is currently promoting the product under its Electronic Compliance Packaging (ECP) banner.
The Cerepak works with standard packaging (blister packs) and equipment, including most heat-seal converting equipment.
The technology employed within the package takes the form of heat-seal paperboard cards with Cypak's printed conductive ink and an electronic chip sealed within the package that uploads to a PC database (or directly to Internet-based software) using radiofrequency via a mouse pad-like reader. The reader is expected to cost less than $100.
Cerepak records the time and date of the removal of medication from the package, in addition to the specific pill location on the package - so it can identify a tablet for use at a particular time (e.g. day one, evening). The ability to track the removal of a specific tablet is a critical capability for titration, dosing studies and placebo periods (for periodically dosed drugs such as oral contraceptives).
Cerepak package also integrates a patient QOL questionnaire (quality of life) into package with re-usable buttons on the package. The QOL questionnaire logs patient side effects and time to onset in addition to time-stamps for these responses.
This provides clinicians running trials with unprecedented insight into the data produced in their trials, for example allowing them to distinguish between non-responders to treatment and non-compliers - those that are simply not taking the drug as directed.
MeadWestvaco expects to have its first customers for the Cerepak in 2005, and is also working on making the packs smaller, more discreet and with new designs, such as wallet fomats.
Under the terms of its agreement with Cypak, MeadWestvaco has an exclusive right to produce and market the on-pack technology in the Americas and a non-exclusive right in rest of the world.
