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Foil pouches packaging solution for various industries, including pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Ensuring the integrity of these pouches is crucial to maintain product quality and safety. Helium leak detection systems such as SIMS 1915+ helium-based technology play a vital role in this process. By identifying potential leaks early on these systems help prevent product contamination, extend shelf life, and safeguard customer health.

Foil pouches offer a straightforward and effective solution for sterile barrier packaging, particularly well-suited for medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. Ensuring the integrity of these pouches is crucial to maintain product quality and safety. SIMS 1915+ helps in safeguarding product integrity. The integrity of foil pouches is crucial to maintain product quality and safety. Pouch defects can compromise product quality and introduce contamination risks, potentially leading to product degradation and health hazards for patients. Consequently, rigorous testing of foil pouches is essential to ensure package quality and reliability.

Why are foil pouches used in pharmaceutical industry

Foil pouches are lightweight, flexible, and cost-effective, making them easy to store and transport. Foil pouches can be resealed, extending product shelf life and preventing contamination. Package property of foil pouches help protect sensitive medications from moisture, oxygen, and light, ensuring product integrity. Foil pouches are also compatible with various sterilization methods, making them suitable for sterile product. It can be customized to accommodate different product sizes and shapes, offering versatility in packaging design. By using leak detection systems like SIMS 1915+, manufacturers can further enhance the quality and safety of foil pouch packaging, ensuring medications reach consumers in pristine condition.

Foil pouches package integrity testing using SIMS 1915+

The SIMS 1915+ is a helium leak detection system specifically designed for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. It utilizes helium as a tracer gas to accurately detect leaks in a variety of packaging formats, including foil pouches, bottles, vials, blister cards, syringes, and cartridges. Unlike traditional methods like vacuum bubble and dye penetration tests, SIMS 1915+ provides quantitative measurements, ensuring a higher level of precision. This advanced system offers numerous applications, including package design validation, tooling certification, manufacturing line setup, and ongoing quality control. Its oil-free pump, detector, and integrated power system are tailored to the specific needs of the industry, enabling the detection of leaks as small as 1 x 10-10 mbar L/s at room temperature. Each SIMS 1915+ device can be customized to meet the unique requirements of individual clients, providing a flexible and reliable solution for maintaining product integrity.

Applications of SIMS 1915+ include:

• Pre-filled syringes
• Bottles
• Blister packs
• Foil pouches
• Vials
• Combination products (cartridges)

Benefits of SIMS 1915+ in foil pouches

• Detects microscopic defects invisible to the eye, ensuring product integrity.
• Provides precise leak rate measurements for rigorous quality control.
• Offers rapid testing cycles for efficient production.
• Adapts to diverse foil pouch configurations.
• Ensures adherence to regulatory standards and industry best practices.

The pharmaceutical industry needs deep cold storage for complex drug and biologic formulations. Traditional packaging may not withstand these extreme temperatures, leading to potential leaks and product degradation. The PTI LT add-on units for SIMS helium leak detectors offer advanced solutions that evaluates package integrity at temps ranging from 0°C to -160°C, helping manufacturers identify defects and optimize their packaging for deep cold storage.

Low Temperature Packaging - Overview and Applications

The pharmaceutical industry's increasing focus on complex drug and biologic formulations necessitates stringent temperature control to maintain product quality and efficacy. These sensitive products, often requiring storage at ultra-low temperatures, present unique challenges for packaging integrity.

Low-temperature packaging is critical for a diverse range of products, including:

• Vials
• Biologics and Gene Therapies: These complex biological products often require ultra-low temperature storage to maintain their potency and efficacy.
• Vaccines: Many vaccines, especially those derived from live viruses or fragile proteins, necessitate storage at low temperatures to prevent degradation.
• Pharmaceutical Ingredients: Certain pharmaceutical ingredients, particularly those derived from natural sources or with complex molecular structures, may require low-temperature storage to prevent degradation.

The Challenge of Low-Temperature Package

• Material Issues: Elastomers and plastics can become brittle, affecting seals and container integrity.
• Leakage Risks: Primary and secondary seals may fail at low temperatures.
• Testing Limitations: Traditional leak testing methods may be ineffective.
• Regulatory Compliance: Adherence to USP 1207 and international standards is crucial.
• Logistics and Transportation: Maintaining temperature control and ensuring package durability are essential.

Low Temperature Package Leak Detection using Helium Leak Testing

SIMS Low Temp Add-On units include models LT 80, LT 85 and LT 150, are designed to address the critical challenge of ensuring package integrity at extremely low temperatures. By combining a chiller with a helium leak detector, the LT80, for example, allows for accurate testing of packages down to -80°C. This enables manufacturers to identify potential leaks in packaging materials, such as elastomeric closures, that may occur at these low temperatures. By understanding the performance of packaging systems under extreme conditions, manufacturers can improve product quality, reduce waste, and comply with stringent regulatory standards.

The LT systems offer several key advantages for the pharmaceutical industry:

• Accurate Low-Temperature Leak Detection: Precisely identifies leaks in packaging materials at ultra-low temperatures
• Enhanced Product Quality: Ensures the integrity of sensitive products, preventing degradation and maintaining potency.
• Reduced Product Loss: Minimizes waste due to leakage and spoilage, optimizing inventory and reducing costs.
• Regulatory Compliance: Adheres to strict regulatory standards like USP 1207, ensuring product safety and quality.

The pharmaceutical industry's growing reliance on deep cold storage for sensitive products demand robust and reliable packaging solutions. Helium leak detection provides a powerful tool for assessing container closure integrity, ensuring that packages can withstand the rigors of ultra-low temperature environments. By proactively identifying and addressing potential leaks, manufacturers can safeguard product quality, reduce waste, and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

Pharmaceutical bottle integrity testing is an important step in assuring that the product is safe and unadulterated. It analyzes the strength and integrity of the closure mechanism as well as its capacity to maintain a sterile barrier. Container closure integrity testing analyzes the materials and chemicals for the possibility of migration or leaching into the drug product, resulting in contamination. Microorganisms, gases, and other chemicals are examples of contaminants. Container system integrity testing involves evaluating primary packaging, or everything that comes into direct touch with the product, as well as secondary packaging components required for package assembly. Helium leak detection, airborne ultrasound, vacuum decay, and high voltage leak detection are all methods for verifying the safety of container closures.

Helium Leak Detection to Ensure the Integrity of Bottles

Helium leak detection is referred to as a method of finding leaks in a sealed or enclosed system using the helium tracer gas method. The amount of helium that leaks through a breach is measured and is stated as a leak rate. It is an effective container closure integrity test technique for determining the integrity of pharmaceutical and parenteral products. Helium leak testing guarantees the sterility of drug substances and drug products packaged and, therefore, enhances patient safety.

In this method, the package is filled with helium and subjected to vacuum. The quantity of helium that exits the package is measured using a helium leak detector. The result is expressed as the leak rate. Helium leak testing, in addition to being a highly sensitive container closure integrity test technique, is also useful in product design, product quality analyses, failure analysis, and validation.

What are the Applications of Helium Leak Testing?

Some of the most important applications of helium leak testing include:

• Ensuring container closure integrity.
• Selecting closure formulation and configuration.
• Seal integrity monitoring during stability studies.
• Verification and prediction of shelf-life seal integrity.
• Useful in the early stages of developing a pharmaceutical product packaging system.

Helium leak detection offered by LDA (a PTI company) is one of the commonly used leak testing methods that can be used for pharmaceutical package leak detection. Bottles can be tested very effectively using this method. The applications of helium leak detection are also found in vials, prefilled syringes, foil pouches, and cold form blister cards. LDA has long-time expertise in designing leak testing equipment for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements for drug testing of combination products are strict. Companies seeking FDA clearance for such products must fully understand the requirements for FDA approval in order to prevent costly and time-consuming errors. Combination products are made up of two or more regulated components, such as pharmaceuticals, devices, or biologicals, that have been physically, chemically, or otherwise combined and formed as a single entity to achieve a therapeutic effect. A combination product can combine at least two of these product categories, and sometimes all three. Traditional drug-device combination products, such as a syringe pre-filled with a drug, auto-injectors containing a filled cartridge and needle, and co-packaged or kitted products, are some of the most common types of combination products.

The constantly increasing demand for combination pharmaceutical products continues to fuel innovation and creates numerous interesting opportunities that will provide the medical community with promising new alternatives for improving patient care and results. However, bringing bio/pharmaceuticals and medical devices together to form a combination product necessitates extensive testing of all product ingredients.

Why Use SIM 1915+ for Leak Testing Combination Products?

A Helium-based leak detection system-Seal Integrity Monitoring System (SIMS) 1915+ is an excellent solution for detecting leaks in combination products. Packages may be quantitatively evaluated using helium as the tracer gas, which assures better levels of accuracy when compared to traditional vacuum bubble and dye penetration test procedures. SIMS 1915+, which has been proven to be an effective leak detection approach, may also be utilized for package design, tooling certification, manufacturing line setup, and ongoing product quality monitoring. PTI custom builds each SIMS 1915+ Helium Leak Testing device to customer specifications. Cold form blister cards, foil pouches, parenteral vials, syringes, pre-filled syringes, and unique medical devices can also be tested using SIMS 1915+.

Technology Overview

SIMS Model 1915+ helium-based leak testing system offered by PTI is specifically designed for medical and pharmaceutical package leak detection. The SIMS 1915+ enables quantitative analysis of package systems at sensitivity levels as low as 1 x 10 -10 cc/s at room temperature. The Helium Leak Detector Module (HLDM), the most crucial component, is built within a Console Frame Assembly with a Stainless Steel working surface and an optional Dual Test Port Manifold. The consoles have a locking wheel and an articulating arm system for attaching the computer and peripherals, making the independent device simple to operate and maneuver.

The SIMS 1915+ Leak Detection System specs and add-on components are shown below.

• Helium Leak Detector Module (HLDM): Oil-Free, Production Version in Console Frame Assembly with Stainless Steel Working Surface and Dual Test Port Manifold.
• Vacuum Test Fixture Model (VTFM): a custom-made fixture for testing vial container samples.
• Head Space Analyzer Module (HSAM): Model VM-2 that includes three (3) Puncture Probes (two spares) for determining the concentration of helium in the headspace of vial containers.
• Integral Calibration Chamber (with Calibrant Gas Flow Meter/Controller) for HSAM Calibration and a Universal Holder for various vial diameters are offered.
• Helium Filling Device designed specifically for vial testing sample prep that allows vials to be filled with helium.
• Low Temperature (LT) Add-on devices created particularly for evaluating products in ultra-cold storage temperatures as low as –140 °C.

SIMS 1915+ Applications

Common applications of SIMS 1915+ include:

• Pre-filled syringes
• Vials
• Bottles
• Combination products
• Foil pouches
• Blister packs

Combination products provide a safe, effective, and convenient method of administering the drug or biologic therapies. The purpose of testing combination products is to obtain information to support the claim that all use-related hazards connected with the product have been reduced to the greatest extent possible. PTI is well-versed in the extensive testing requirements and regulatory criteria for bio/pharmaceutical products and medical devices, and provides complete testing services for these components, both individually and in combination.

Maintaining the integrity of products from the time it is manufactured to the time it is distributed to the patient is a great challenge. Liquid pharmaceuticals, capsules, and formed tablets are typically packaged in bottles. To assure the quality of these items, leak testing is carried out on each bottle to ensure that it does not leak. Testing pharmaceutical bottles or pharmaceutical package leak detection before filling is a critical step in ensuring the integrity of the container.

Helium leak testing is one of the most sensitive Container Closure Integrity (CCI) testing techniques that can be applied to pharmaceutical bottles for testing quality. Helium is used as a tracer gas, and the quantity of helium leaving through the package is measured and stated as leak rate. Since it is non-toxic, non-flammable, and non-condensable, helium is an ideal tracer gas for finding leaks. Its atmospheric presence is restricted to 5ppm. Due to its tiny atomic size, helium can easily pass-through leaks. Helium is also safe to use since it does not react with the materials of the components under test.

Significance of Helium Mass Spectrometry in Leak Testing Pharmaceutical Bottles

Helium mass spectrometry is a leak detection standard for pharmaceutical containers including bottles. Helium mass spectrometer, a commonly used instrument detects and locates tiny leaks. It usually works with a vacuum chamber and a sealed container filled with helium. A mass spectrometer detects the rate at which helium is leaking out of the container. This method uses tracer gas - helium to fill the product attached to the detector. The tested product leaks helium into the detector, where its partial pressure is measured and displayed.

The leak detector's principle is based on a sector field mass spectrometer. In vacuum, entering helium gases are ionized. The helium ions are then accelerated by adding voltage and then separated in a magnetic field. The ion current is converted to an electric current by using a particular detector. This current is accelerated using leak detection units and displayed on the screen. The current measured will be directly proportional to the concentration of helium and therefore equal to the leak measured.

Applications of Helium Leak Detection

• Ensure container closure integrity.
• Seal integrity monitoring during stability studies.
• Verify and predict shelf-life seal integrity.
• Useful in the early stages of the development of a pharmaceutical product packaging system.
• Closure formulation and configuration selection.

Bottles are useful in the healthcare industry, hence evaluating them is a challenging task nowadays. These containers are extremely difficult to test, however, helium leak detection can be used to qualify them prior to use or as a proof of concept. PTI provides professional engineering solutions for the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) sterile container testing.