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Medical Device Trends at PACK EXPO 2025: Healthcare Packaging · Through the Line: Packaging and Processing

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Through the Line, the podcast exploring innovations and information across the packaging and processing landscape.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: From topics impacting consumer packaged goods and healthcare packaging to the latest technologies and food processing operations.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Through the Line podcast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: As we prepare for PAC Expo International taking place this October in Chicago, we're taking a closer look at the 2026 Medical Device Innovations Report.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: This report was created from the innovations shown at the event last year in Vegas.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And collectively they tell us about the medical device packaging and manufacturing industries.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing advances in automation, labeling, inspection, materials, drug delivery devices, and much, much more.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what problems is the industry trying to solve and what should medical device manufacturings be preparing for next?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Joining me today to answer those questions is Liz Cunio, editor of Healthcare Packaging.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here, Liz.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, Sean.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: What's interesting about a report like this is when you look beyond the individual technologies, which in the report we have laid out nicely for our viewers, but when you look beyond the individual, you really start to see some common challenges.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Manufacturers want flexibility and automation, but they also need an extraordinary level of control.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: They're being asked to manufacture increasingly sophisticated products while maintaining quality, traceability, regulatory compliance, and ultimately patient safety.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's perfect.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start there.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you look collectively at the innovations in the report, what stands out about where medical device manufacturing and packaging are headed?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd say flexibility is one of the biggest themes.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: Traditionally, when we talk about automation, the conversation is about speed.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: How many units per minute can the equipment produce?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Questions like that.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Speed still matters, of course, but manufacturers are increasingly asking, how many different products can I run?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: How quickly can I change formats?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: How much operator intervention is required?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And can this equipment handle products I haven't even launched yet?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: So medical device manufacturers, they really have a diverse product portfolio.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: So equipment that is extremely efficient at reducing more than one configuration is really the best investment.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So then what's driving that need for flexibility?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: Several things.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: SKU proliferation is certainly one.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: We're also seeing shorter runs, more specialized products.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Medical devices themselves today are also becoming more sophisticated, as you can imagine.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have contract manufacturers that might be running products for multiple customers, multiple products, multiple companies.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: So their production requirements can change constantly.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: So manufacturers want equipment that can adapt.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: That means modular designs, programmable settings, faster changeovers, and equipment that can accommodate different package and device geometries.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So do you think then that's changing kind of how companies should evaluate capital equipment?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, definitely.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maximum throughput can't be the only number you look at.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you really need to consider total productive time.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: If one machine runs extremely fast but takes hours to change over, while another on the line runs a little bit slower but can change formats quickly and reliable, reliably, the second machine could ultimately provide more usable capacity.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Manufacturers also need to think about what their product portfolio could look like five, 10 years from now.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, packaging equipment's a long-term investment, and companies that remember that are in a good spot.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing that really stood out from the report is the amount of innovation we're seeing around pre-filled syringes, auto injectors, and other drug delivery devices.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why does there seem to be so much activity there?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: One reason is the continued growth of injectable therapies and biologics combined with the push towards self-administration.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: As more therapies move from hospitals and clinics into patients' homes, the delivery device becomes extremely important.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: It has to protect the drug, function reliably, and be intuitive enough for a patient who may not have clinical training.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: And let's face it, most of us don't have the clinical training.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: So these products really have to be intuitive.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: So that's creating an interesting challenge.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: You're no longer just designing the device and the package and the label.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's everything all at one.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: They all have to interact.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that packaging needs to be considered earlier as the device is being developed?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: Packaging engineers should always be involved early because decisions about device geometry, materials, labeling surfaces, sterilization and distribution, those can all have downstream packaging implications.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: If packaging enters the conversation after the device is essentially finished, you may discover that something that performed perfectly from the device standpoint is difficult to automate, label, inspect, or even protect during distribution.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: So designing for manufacturability and designing for packaging, they should really happen alongside designing for the patient.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's fair.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about inspection.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, quality control and inspection isn't new.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that's been around forever and certainly been around in the medical device sphere.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But inspection technology seems to be coming more and more sophisticated.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is that fair to say?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting to always see these new inspection and detection equipment at the shows.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: A major shift is really toward inspecting more attributes earlier and generating more information from that inspection.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: So less just taking a picture and moving on.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's really what are we, what can we get from this picture?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: What other data points?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: So historically, you might inspect whether a component or label was present.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're really looking at position, orientation, print quality, variable data, barcodes, dimensional characteristics, and other attributes.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: And we're doing that at production speed.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: The real advantage is that you're moving quality control closer to the point where a defect occurs.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, then that obviously has to have an efficiency benefit as well, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not waiting until more product is created.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: Inspection is often framed primarily as a compliance function, but there's an operational benefit.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: If a process starts drifting and you identify it immediately, you might lose a few units.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: If you discover it during downstream quality inspection, you could have produced thousands of questionable units.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: So inspection becomes part of process control.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: The data can potentially help manufacturers understand why defects are occurring rather than simply finding them.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I get it.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So then labeling is another major area of the report.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Has labeling essentially become a data management challenge?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: Very much.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: In regulated healthcare manufacturing, the physical act of applying a label may actually be one of the simpler parts of the process.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: The complexity is making sure the correct information gets on to the correct product in the correct format.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're dealing with unique device identification, things like variable data, barcodes, lot information, expiration dates, market specific requirements, and traceability.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: A label can look perfectly fine and still be wrong.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's why data integrity and verification have become so important.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So does that mean things like packaging and IT are becoming much more connected?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think that's going to continue.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Packaging equipment increasingly needs information from other systems, and the packaging operation generates information that quality, regulatory, and manufacturing teams want to use.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: We're moving away from machines operating as isolated islands, which is a good thing.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And materials are evolving as well.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: We see them evolving in all the other industries.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: How about in medical device packaging?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are medical device packaging materials being asked to do today that they weren't being asked to do previously?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so materials is a tough one, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Materials, they're really doing everything, or I should say almost everything.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: They have to physically protect the device.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: They need to maintain sterility.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: They also need to withstand distribution, work consistently on automated equipment, support patient usability.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: At the same time, companies are receiving a lot of pressure to reduce materials, improve sustainability.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a difficult balance in healthcare because sustainability can't compromise patient safety package integrity.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's a true balance and one that's difficult to achieve.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that I guess I have to turn that back to you.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do you answer that question of how do manufacturers balance sustainability and performance?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the most realistic approach is really application specific.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And start instead of starting with an idea of, hey, we need to eliminate this specific material, I think you need to understand what the package needs are and what you can actually accomplish.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: Then you can ask whether can we use a little bit less material?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Can we simplify the structure?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Can we redesign one component or improve recyclability?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: Or can we eliminate unnecessary secondary packaging?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of options to look at how to bring some sustainability aside from we're going to reduce all plastic or something like that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's bring again, I don't know how we've made it this long without talking about labor, but let's bring people into this discussion.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: As the equipment becomes more automated, how important is operator usability?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to think it's very, it's pretty important with the issues we're facing with the workforce.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's extremely important.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about workforce challenges all the time.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And in this case of automation, but doesn't really necessarily eliminate the need for skilled people.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: It changes what those people need to do.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it even requires more skilled people.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's just how the machine and plant runs.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So operators may need to be managing several processes, interpreting machine information, troubleshooting, performing changeovers.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Equipment needs to make those tasks as intuitive as possible.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's why good HMI design is important, guided changeovers, recipe management, easier maintenance, all of these features can reduce the opportunities for error and really make employee training a lot easier.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so sophisticated automation is actually making the human-machine interaction more important?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think so.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: If a system is incredibly capable, but only one person in the plant understands how to operate it, you've created another vulnerability.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: The best automation takes complexity that's happening behind the scenes and presents operators with clear, actionable information.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I get it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So then I guess we've again, it's another topic I can't believe we've made it this long without talking about, but where does good old AI fit into all of this?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think AI is going to emerge incrementally rather than just suddenly creating autonomous medical device factories.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's the case at all.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Machine vision is an obvious area, predictive maintenance, process analytics could help manufacturers identify patterns that us humans, human operators wouldn't be able to easily detect.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: But AI depends on data.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about this.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of what we're seeing today, connected equipment, digital records, better sensors, it's really about building the infrastructure and data because the AI really truly needs that data to be able to work.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like we see that across all packaging and all the different reports that we've looked at.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess if you're a medical device packaging engineer and you're listening to this podcast as you should be, what's the biggest takeaway you would take from the innovations report?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I would say the takeaway is really don't design only for today's product.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Think about flexibility, connectivity, inspection, operator usability, and most importantly, really future formats.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: The products you're packaging five years from now may look very different from what you're packaging today.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'd also say I'd involve packaging, manufacturing, quality, human factors teams, regulatory teams, pretty much everyone as early as possible.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: The boundaries between those disciplines are becoming much less distinct.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we're getting near the end.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: So to wrap up, what's one trend that you yourself will be watching more closely?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'll be watching really the convergence of automation and data.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're already very good at making machines perform individual tasks.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: The next opportunity is really to get those machines and all the systems and operators and inspection, quality, all those things really working from the same information.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I think we're going to see significant improvements in both productivity and quality.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Liz has been great.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for taking the time, Liz.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: This has been some great food for thought for the medical device packaging world.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: And we saw some great stuff at Pac Expo Las Vegas.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, we're going to see some great stuff, new innovations and equipment and technologies and even materials at Pac Expo International, October 18th through the 21st.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hope to see you there.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: But just remember, the really the larger message from this report is that innovation isn't simply about making packaging lines faster.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's about making them more adaptable, connected, verifiable, and easier to operate, all while dealing with increasingly sophisticated products.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: So excited to see some more of that stuff on display at Pac Expo International.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Sean.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, ProFoodworld.com, and healthcare packaging.com for more packaging and processing news.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast was edited by Brady Guns.