Pharmaceutical and healthcare packaging must meet the highest standards to enclose and protect the product, ensure its stability and guarantee its delivery, as well as inform and protect the end user.  The labels are often the first point of information for consumers and healthcare workers. Therefore, there are many factors to consider in the production of pressure sensitive labels (PSL) for these industries from print quality, 100% accuracy, high durability, performance to compliance with strict health regulations to keep both products and people safe.

Every pharma and healthcare label we produce is unique to our clients’ requirements in terms of sizes, shapes, product surface and storage conditions. Lebone Paarl Labels’ modern UV flexo and digital self-adhesive printing and finishing technology delivers excellent quality, reliable accuracy and the flexibility to tailor your labels exactly to your packaging needs

 

The importance of quality and durability for pharmaceutical and healthcare labels!

For pharmaceutical and healthcare products, the right label can mean the difference between life and death. Incorrect label material and low quality printing can result in critical information lost. Healthcare labels must clearly and reliably provide information about the product’s contents, batch number, expiry date, administration and dosage. Therefore, printed label durability to withstand handling, chemicals, freezing, thawing, sterilisation or water is vital to ensure essential information is always legible and remains in place for the entire product’s life cycle. 

 

Important performance factors for a pharmaceutical and healthcare label:

• No edge lifting
• Remain flat with no wrinkling
• Adhere to both moist and cold surfaces
• Printing must remain legible if exposed to temperature change, moisture, chemicals or alcohol
• Remain securely intact through storage and handling by patients or medical professionals without absorbing moisture or tearing
• Resist water whitening  for clear film labels
• Film labels must not melt, shrink or become brittle with temperature changes

What storage conditions need to be considered pharmaceutical and healthcare labels?

These labels needs to perform well even in humid or chill storage conditions. Pharma products are often stored in fridge at temperatures of between 2–8°C. Container surfaces may become moist with condensation when shifted to warmer room temperatures. Cold storage should also be taken into account for label adhesion. Pharma packaging may also be subject to high heat and steam during sterilisation. 

Healthcare products may also be subject to steam and moisture if stored in bathrooms or kitchens.

Choosing right label material for your pharmaceutical and healthcare products

Selecting the right label material for pharmaceutical and healthcare products is essential to safeguarding the integrity of the product and the safety of a patient.  Lebone Paarl Labels’ has the expertise and experience to assist you to source pharmaceutical and healthcare labelling materials that are developed to meet or exceed international industry regulations and safety requirements. Robust label adhesives can be used on both glass or plastic container.

The importance of low migration

Pharmaceutical and healthcare labels need to demonstrate migration-safe properties as no harmful chemical compounds must leach into the product. Migration can originate from the:

• Label face material substrate
• Label adhesive
• Label printing inks and protective over-varnishes

Migrations can affect patient safety, the product’s chemical or physical characteristics, efficacy or stability.

Lebone Paarl Labels’ paper suppliers offer a selection of low-leachability label materials, especially developed and pre-tested to meet regulatory compliance for drug and medical packaging. They guarantee long-term availability of stability of their stock.

 

Lebone Paarl Labels also offers the printing of pressure sensitive labels using low migration inks. These low odour and low taint inks are fast curing, have good adhesion across a wide range of substrates and are foil blockable. They are designed to dramatically reduce migration of chemicals from the ink printed on the packaging.

Pharmaceutical and healthcare label printing quality guaranteed

Ensuring print legibility, or readability, throughout a pharma product’s lifecycle is mandatory. For safety reasons patients must always be able to read the text printed on the label. Poor-quality printing or printing errors can lead to incorrect usage, which for some products can have fatal consequences. Therefore, high quality production is critical to ensure every label is accurate, legible and durable with no risk of deterioration under storage conditions. Embracing the rapid advancements in technology ensures Lebone Paarl Labels can reliably deliver labels of uncompromised quality, faster and more efficiently. Clients can be confident their pressure sensitive labels are inspected according to stringent international  standards for perfect continuity, full brand integrity and functionality to Spotlight their brands.

 

• 100% High resolution label inspection

Lebone Paarl Labels has installed the Tubescan digital strobe ++ for 100% label inspection detection of all print defects and accurate counting of clients’ labels. This is applied to every label printed at Lebone Paarl Labels to ensure our customers enjoy 100% inspection of every label all the time.  

• Foundation Food Safety System Certification 22000

Lebone Paarl Labels is FSSC 22000 certified, confirming that the food safety management system is compliant for food and pharmaceutical products.

• International quality standard certification

ISO 9001 certification demonstrates Lebone Paarl Labels ability to consistently deliver products that meet customer and regulatory requirements at an international quality standard. 

• Perfectly printed colour

Lebone Paarl Labels has received certification for both a Mellow Colour ISO 12647 Proficient Printer and ImpressionProof. Tight control of Brand colours is essential, and instrumentation has to be precise for the demanding type of work that ImpressionProof Certified Printers undertake. 

Printing pharmaceutical and healthcare labels options

Lebone Paarl Labels offers the versatility of both modern UV flexo and digital printing and finishing from its operation in Paarl in the Western Cape. 

• UV flexo self-adhesive labels

Lebone Paarl Labels’ fleet of UV flexo presses combine excellent print quality, high productivity and flexibility. They are ideally suited but not limited to longer print runs of commercial food and beverage labels.  Printing can be done on wide variety of substrates and finishing such as laminating, embossing, foiling and die cutting can be done inline in a single pass. 

• Digitally printed labels

In digital printing, images are printed directly onto a substrate from electronic data without printing plates. It’s ideally suited but not limited to shorter print runs and labels requiring variable elements. Lebone Paarl Labels’ modern HP Indigo digital press offers flexible high-resolution printing of up to 7 colours that matches gravure printing. HP ElectroInk includes silver for metallic finishes and white for sleeves. 

Digital printing allows for variable printing of unique elements such as text, images, barcodes, numbers and security features. Individually unique labels can also be created for maximum customer interactivity with HP Smartstream Mosaic and Collage. The inline spectrophotometer eliminates manual color calibrations and adjustments for perfect colour from the first label to the last one off the press. 

Special finishes such as foiling, high built varnish, embossing, debossing and die cutting can be add ed in one pass to digitally printed labels on Lebone Paarl Labels’ versatile Abg Digicon finishing line.

Adding security features to pharmaceutical and healthcare label

Adding a feature on the labels at can assist in eliminating counterfeiting, whilst enabling supply chain track & trace and product authentication for brands. This may include a variable images, text, numbers, barcodes, or colors onto the labels for distribution and warehousing tracking, security features or for personalised marketing campaigns. 

Does sustainable labelling matter for pharmaceutical and healthcare products?

Using a more sustainable label substrate could have a noticeable impact on your company’s carbon footprint and minimises your environmental impact. These labelling material options are produced with reduced CO2 emissions, water and energy usage. They also consider sourcing raw materials from certified renewable and recycled content. Contact our Lebone Paarl Label team to discuss the options available to you.

Design factors to consider when designing pharmaceutical and healthcare labels

• Substrate (glass, plastic)
• Surface (roughness, possible treatments)
• Size and shape (small volume size and diameter, curved, corners)
• Storage and usage conditions

Finding a pharmaceutical and healthcare label printer in Cape Town, Western Cape

Located in Paarl, Lebone Paarl Labels is perfectly situated to print, finish and supply pharmaceutical and healthcare labels throughout the Western Cape. They also service many clients across South African including the main centres of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Bloemfontein. 

Adding security features to pharmaceutical and healthcare label

The cost of pharmaceutical and healthcare label printing depends on the volume of labels that need to be printed, as well as the type of substrate, printing and finishing processes used. For a free quote, please contact Lebone Paarl Labels at info@lpaarllabels.co.za.