Sterile Packaging Industry Essential to Patient Safety

May 4, 2020

As the nation’s hospitals, medical providers, and first responders continue treating patients for COVID-19, the sterile flexible packaging industry is providing a critical component in the production of primary packaging in a sterile barrier system that helps to ensure the safety of life-saving medical devices. Sterilization packaging is used for products such as diagnostic tests, drug delivery devices (such as IV solutions and infusion sets), syringes, catheters, intubation tubes, isolation gowns, and other personal protective equipment. These packaging solutions aid in maintaining device sterility and efficacy through protective flexible packaging that has undergone a rigorous validation and complex sterilization process.

Sterilized flexible pouches protect devices until the point of use and are designed to give frontline healthcare workers easy access to the equipment, allowing them to be responsive in life or death emergency situations. Additionally, sterilization packaging minimizes the risk of hospital-acquired infections that can place young, elderly, or immunosuppressed patients at risk.

The members of FPA’s Sterilization Packaging Manufacturers Council (SPMC) are industry experts in the unique production requirements of medical and pharmaceutical sterilization packaging. Our member companies produce the vast majority of all sterilizable flexible packaging materials used in the United States. As such, our members are essential manufacturers that are vital to the supply chain when addressing the needs of Americans during the COVID-19 crisis.

“SPMC member companies remain highly responsive to meet the changing needs of the healthcare industry during this time. That includes flexing equipment staffing and working with key supply chain partners to meet increased demand for swabs packaging and packaging for the re-sterilization of PPE that are in short supply in the market,” says Don Alip, Marketing Committee Chairman, SPMC.

SPMC’s members are committed to the health and safety of their workforce and the families they support. Stringent safety precautions are in place at our manufacturing facilities to protect not only the workers, but the patients who may ultimately need the products our packaging protects.

For more information about the SPMC, please visit www.sterilizationpackaging.org. 

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Formed as a council of the Flexible Packaging Association in 1994, SPMC is a consortium of like-minded companies committed to patient protection by providing sterilization packaging for life-saving medical devices and pharmaceuticals. The SPMC collaborates with supply chain partners and regulators to provide packaging requirement guidance, test methodology clarity, standards development, and user education. SPMC members use their wealth of experience for the betterment of all. All work performed on behalf of the Council is done on a voluntary basis by its member companies, which include Amcor Flexibles, Beacon Converters, Paxxus, PPC Flexible Packaging, Printpack Medical, and Technipaq. 

For more information, contact:
Ram Singhal, Vice President Technology & Environmental Strategy
Sterilization Packaging Manufacturers Council 
A Council of the Flexible Packaging Association
rsinghal@flexpack.org