Glass bottle, plastic bottle and soft bag are the three forms of LVP packaging. Nowadays, under the dual effect of the newly revised GMP standard and cost increase, LVP is transiting to non-PVC soft bag packaging. April 10, the largest domestic infusion production automatic line equipment suppliers - Hunan Qianshan medicine machine chairman Liu Xianghua said, at present, a number of domestic soft bag production line is about to be put into production, the second half of this year, large infusion soft bag packaging will fully replace plastic bottle packaging.
Upgrading steps are non-stop
4∶4∶2 used to be the market pattern of large infusion maintained for many years in China, which represents the meaning of glass bottles and plastic bottles packaging infusion market share each accounted for 40%, soft bag packaging infusion accounted for 20%. This pattern was gradually broken after 2011. Chen Xianxia, vice president of China Resources Double Crane Pharmaceutical Co., LTD., once said that in recent years, the overall size of LVP market has grown substantially, and the industrial concentration has been improving. In 2011, the national OUTPUT of LVP reached 11.487 billion bottles (bags). Among them, the market share of plastic bottle infusion is 45.11%, glass bottle infusion is 24.6%, non-PVC soft bag infusion is 20.72%, upright polypropylene soft bag infusion is 8.05%.
An industry insider said that the upgrading of LVP industry is mainly manifested in the upgrading of packaging, in the upgrading process, there is the need to improve quality standards, but also the promotion of cost factors.
This is supported by the upgrading of LVP from glass to plastic packaging. In 2004, the production and sales volume of LVP in China was only 4 billion bottles (bags). Plastic bottles, soft bag packaging infusion accounted for 15% of total production. With China's overall elimination of natural rubber plug to butyl rubber plug, the production cost pressure of large infusion enterprises is prominent, and this pressure is also transmitted to glass bottle manufacturers. At that time, the price of an infusion bottle was 0.3 to 0.4 won, while the price of a special-shaped bottle was 0.8 to 0.9 won. Therefore, glass bottle companies only produce infusion bottles when there are no orders for bottles. In addition, the glass bottle mouth changed after the replacement of butyl rubber plug by LPG, which greatly reduced the glass bottle forming rate and increased the production cost. The glass bottle manufacturer hoped to absorb the cost by raising the price collectively, but because the LPG manufacturer could not bear it, the glass bottle was out of stock.
In order to get rid of the predicament of glass bottle packaging, at the end of 2004, some large infusion enterprises have reduced the output of glass bottle infusion, and turned to the production line of plastic bottle. Because of the same bottle of infusion, the market price after the replacement of plastic bottle increases by more than 2 yuan, quickly by the medical institutions warm pursuit. At the same time, compared with glass bottle, plastic bottle packaging has the advantages of light weight, strong impact resistance, not easy to break, good toughness and mechanical strength, convenient transportation and use.
"Now plastic bottle packaging has occupied an absolute share in large infusion packaging, glass bottle packaging share has been very small, at the same time, the price of plastic bottle has been very low, in the bidding and procurement of fierce competition, and soft bag infusion bidding price is about 2 times of plastic bottle infusion." Liu Xianghua said.
The fall of the bottle was a foregone conclusion
"LVP bottle packaging is just a transition." China pharmaceutical packaging Association a staff said.
In fact, from the beginning of 2011, after the European Union, China Taiwan plastic packaging plasticizer problem, plastic packaging in special environment exudate safety issues began to surface. And for our country plastic bottle packaging LVP, the safety of packaging also began to cause concern.
In China, plastic bottle infusion package material is mostly polypropylene plastic. Relevant literature shows that in the formula design of plastic bottle body, the first thing to determine whether the variety of plastic raw materials meet the requirements of equipment molding. Followed by the selection of various additives. The purpose of adding modifiers is to improve the process properties and reduce the intermolecular forces of plastics during injection blow molding... The newly revised GMP implemented in China refers to the EU standard, and puts forward higher standards for sterile products that can eventually be sterilized. Although polypropylene plastics have high temperature resistance, instant high temperature sterilization still poses a great challenge to packaging materials. At the same time, as raw material prices continue to rise, infusion production costs increase, large infusion enterprises continue to reduce the cost of packaging materials, and once the bottle wall is too thin to talk about high temperature resistance.
In recent years, the unqualified items mainly focus on the clarity and discoloration of liquid medicine in the quality spot check of LSD market, whether this is related to the package material is unknown. However, since 2009, relevant departments have stopped approving plastic bottle production lines, and plastic bottle infusion has gradually withdrawn from urban hospitals and shifted to the low-end market.
It is widely believed in the industry that the large infusion packaging to soft bags is mainly two aspects of the driving force, one is the market. At present, the price of plastic bottles is low, the price competition is white hot, enterprises need to find alternative high value-added products; Second, through the newly revised GMP certification of large infusion enterprises to build a new production line, eliminate the plastic bottle production line, take the opportunity to achieve product upgrading.
Rough statistics, from 2000 to 2008, China put into production about 150 plastic bottle infusion production lines, each line equipment investment of about 10 million yuan, the whole industry in plastic bottle packaging investment of about 1.5 billion yuan. And once the soft bag replacement plastic bottle also means that the front of the input all sank.
The LVP industry is moving forward cautiously
"In the first half of this year, market demand for LVP decreased, mainly because a significant number of enterprises have not passed the newly revised GMP certification, and the situation is expected to improve in the second half of the year." Liu Xianghua said.
It is reported that the new soft bag packaging are non-PVC materials, and the cost of raw materials of this material is not high, but also the infusion packaging form commonly used in the international. Soft bag infusion packaging has the characteristics of low cost, convenient transportation and safe use. An industry insider said that in the past nearly ten years, with the upgrading of large infusion packaging, many glass infusion enterprises were eliminated in the market competition, and this round of upgrading of plastic packaging enterprises will also have enterprises eliminated, who seized the initiative who is likely to lead.
In fact, the current soft bag packaging and infusion preparation compatibility of questionable sound. Unlike plastic bottles, soft bag packaging has undergone a long period of clinical validation and is widely used in developed countries.
For the development of LVP industry in China, the industry has both good and bad news. The good news is that during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, with the continuous expansion of coverage of basic medical insurance and the continuous improvement of security level, as well as the aging of the population, the LVP market will continue to grow steadily and the industry concentration is rapidly improving. Worry is, our country big infusion abuse serious, the country introduced a number of measures to curb excessive medical treatment.
