Patient safety should be at the heart of everything the pharma industry does.

Of course, everyone, at some point in their lives, will be a patient of the pharma industry. That means, in addition to ensuring medication formulations are safe and medical devices can be used with minimal risk, the industry has a responsibility to make its products as safe as possible for everyone who may come into contact with them.

This raises a tricky balancing act when it comes to designing child-resistant packaging. And it’s a balancing act that requires specialist expertise to execute.

The next level of pharma packaging safety

As the pharmaceutical industry evolves, so do expectations for safer, more accessible packaging. Regulations like the US Poison Prevention Packaging Act (PPPA) and the European Standard EN 14375 make it a legal imperative to protect children, while still ensuring ease of use for its intended patients. These measures are complemented by international standards such as ISO 8317, which requires stringent real-world testing that replicates the ways that both children and adults interact with packaging.

This means products have to be packaged in a way that protects against the curiosity of children, while simultaneously being easily accessible for patients who may have difficulties with eyesight or motor skills. As part of the F-value testing protocol, panels of children aged 3½ to 4¼ years are given a pack and asked to open it within five minutes. If they fail, they are shown how it works and given another five minutes to try again. To pass and be certified with the highest level of protection – F1 certification, which indicates suitability for the most potentially harmful products – the pack must demonstrate that at least 85% of children cannot open it.

For senior-friendly certification, adults must be able to open a new, identical package and reclose it within 60 seconds. At least 90% of adults must succeed in order to prove the packaging does not become a barrier to medication adherence.

As patients increasingly have more agency over their therapies and more medications are stored in households, devising innovations that can pass both tests is pivotal to the future of pharma.

An adaptable solution

To achieve all of the above, packaging needs to balance a number of competing priorities, from durability to accessibility, adaptability, and sustainability. That means selecting the right format is at the heart of the conversation. And, for many applications, cartons represent a compelling option that is both tried-and-tested and future-proof.

Cartons are hugely adaptable, offering a wide range of possibilities in the form of both structural design and finishing. This means cartons can be used to meet the needs of a wide range of applications, ranging from blister packs and bottles to injectables and medical devices. For example, heavier products like inhalers can make use of heavyweight, tear-resistant board grades, while modular structural designs can keep different components separate and secure through the supply chain.

At MM Pharma & Healthcare Packaging, we have first-hand experience with the benefits of cartonboard when developing child-resistant packaging. As an example, we have used it to develop a reinforced carton and inner tray solution that uses tabs, finger holes, and tuck flaps to create a robust locking mechanism. Once unlocked, the inner tray slides out of the carton and presents the medication to the user. This is certified as both child-resistant and senior-friendly and can be adapted for a wide range of applications.

This adaptability is important, as while many solutions do exist for tablet blister packs, the growing use of injectables as a medication route called for a robust, child-safe packaging solution specifically designed for these formats.

Child-resistant packaging demands precision, empathy, and deep technical expertise. As therapies evolve and more treatments move into the home, solutions must protect the most vulnerable without hindering those who rely on them. With adaptable cartonboard engineering designed to meet rigorous certification standards, the industry can deliver packaging that strengthens safety, accessibility, and patient confidence.