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OUTSOURCING INSIGHTS REPORT LIFESCIENCELEADER.COM APRIL 2014 16 Offering new technologies that are consumer-friendly and ensure accurate dosing is a way for both brands (sponsor and CMO) to gain customer loyalty. K A T E H A M M E K E Director of Marketing Intelligence Nice Insight New Technologies In Fill-Finish May Bring Brand Loyalty Along With Improved Patient Safety In January 2014, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) called on drug makers, the FDA, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to help reduce the number of emergency room visits among children who are accidentally given the wrong dosage. He argues that implementing flow-restricting devices on liquid formulations could prevent approximately 10,000 emergency room visits each year and would cost only a matter of cents per bottle. hile Schumer is pushing for the legislature to mandate further measures to protect children, kids are not the only population that would benefit from improved delivery methods aimed at pre- cise doses. A recent survey among bio- pharmaceutical companies that engage CMO services showed that 73 percent of these businesses offer formulations for special needs patients, 53 percent offer pediatric formulations, and 50 per- cent offer geriatric formulations. Each of these populations is at risk for inac- curate dosing, and while a flow restric- tor is a prospective means to reduce medicating inaccuracies, there are better technologies becoming available. Packaging medications in a unit-dose format has been popular in Europe and Japan for some time, and has been widely embraced in the U.S. in the food and beverage market — just think of the lit- tle packets of flavoring one can add to bottled water or the tubes of yogurt to take on the go. These convenient little packages are known as stick-packs and may be filled with powders or liquids. Not only are they premeasured to ensure accurate quantities — providing an advantage over the flow restrictor — the format reduces the likelihood of spilling the spoonful of medication while trying to gain a child's compliance. Further, the packaging is travel-friendly, and stick- packs can accommodate a wider variety of medications than liquids that would benefit from a flow restrictor, including powders and drugs that require sterile processing. CONSUMER-FOCUSED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT As pharmaceutical companies, espe- cially those with OTC products, become more consumer focused — 44 percent of respondents to the same survey stated their company is very consumer focused, meaning they actively seek out infor- mation on the buyers of their products and use that information to shape prod- uct development — finding delivery and packaging methods that appeal directly to buyers helps to ensure brand loyalty. In fact, nearly two-thirds of respondents (62 percent) stated it is important for a CMO to provide proprietary technol- ogy to offer marketing differentiation. At present, there is some disconnect between showing strong consumer interest and understanding what strong- ly appeals to consumers. This presented itself in the research when interest levels in products specifically designed to be consumer-friendly lagged behind tradi- tional pharmaceutical formats among By K. Hammeke NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN FILL-FINISH MAY BRING BRAND LOYALTY ALONG WITH IMPROVED PATIENT SAFETY 0 4 1 4 _ R e p o r t s _ O I . i n d d 1 0414_Reports_OI.indd 1 3 / 2 1 / 2 0 1 4 1 2 : 2 1 : 1 0 P M 3/21/2014 12:21:10 PM