E Ink® Holdings, "E Ink" (8069.TW), the leading innovator of electronic ink technology and Faubel & Co. Nachf. GmbH, a proven supplier to the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, announced the availability of the Faubel-Med® Label, a smart label for investigational medicinal products. The Med Label features E Ink’s low-voltage film technology, bringing display modules and new system designs to pharmaceutical packaging.
The Med Label is a combination of an ePaper display and a booklet label that is integrated with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to allow pharmaceutical packaging to be updated on demand. The Med Label features a segmented bi-stable E Ink display that can provide expiry updates – even on a sealed kit. This digital solution provides pharmaceutical companies an alternative to relabeling whenever stability data changes, allowing for considerable time and cost savings to international clinical trials.
"The Med Label is a breakthrough product that makes the handling of investigational medicinal products in clinical trial supply chains so much easier," said Konrad Zachman, head of production for new technologies at Faubel. "As we see a continuous growth in biologic products that require frequent updates on stability data, the Med Label emerges as a cost-effective, highly-efficient smart label that meets the demands of present and future compliance requirements."
Thanks to E Ink’s ePaper solution, Faubel is expanding its service offerings to provide connected labels with RFID and ePaper technology. Furthermore, this innovation enables the pharmaceutical industry to go digital using valuable tools such as software and real-time reporting, among others. "We believe this is a game changer that will transform clinical trials, saving the industry time and money", said Frank Jäger, managing director at Faubel.
The Med Label is equipped with a battery-free, always-on ePaper display and an RFID tag. It facilitates on-demand label updates for expiry dates at the clinical depot site and provides real time reporting and documentation that meet compliance requirements.
"E Ink’s smart packaging solutions are at the forefront of pharmaceutical packaging innovation," said Paul Apen, chief strategy officer at E Ink. "Adding displays to pharma packaging requires thin and flexible displays that are also low-power. Our ePaper displays are perfect for this application given their thin, low voltage properties, as well as easy readability, contrast and wide viewing angle."
E Ink’s new low-voltage film uses roughly 5v compared to the typical 15v driving voltage for electronic paper displays, which decreases the power required for label updates and speeds the update process.
"We are thrilled to partner with Faubel to create a product that will help the pharmaceutical industry take advantage of the digital resources at its disposal," said FY Gan, executive vice-president of sales center at E Ink. "The potential to enhance and simplify clinical trials is endless; we’re excited to collaborate with industry leaders like Faubel to provide system integration capability for not only the pharmaceutical industry in a total solution, but a wide range of smart packaging applications that deliver the best customer experience of using e-paper for digital transformation."