In our Expert Insights series, Victor Gherdan, Associate Director, Package Design at PCI Pharma Services, shares his perspective on the evolving role of pharmaceutical packaging.
Based in the Philadelphia area, Victor has more than 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical packaging design and development. He studied at Rutgers University School of Engineering, earning a Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences in Engineering with a concentration in Packaging Engineering.
His expertise spans package design, package-equipment interaction, and Design for Manufacturability (DFM). His work includes several utility patents related to child-resistant and senior-friendly packaging systems, as well as drug delivery devices.
Throughout his career, Victor has helped develop packaging solutions that balance patient needs, regulatory requirements, manufacturing efficiency, and commercial objectives. At PCI, he leads multidisciplinary packaging development teams supporting specialized package design, performance testing, and consulting services. Working closely with pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients, Victor and his teams develop robust, patient-centric solutions that accelerate commercialization and support the successful delivery of life-changing therapies worldwide.
Drawing on that experience, Victor shares how he has seen pharmaceutical packaging evolve and what that means for drug development today
Over my career as a packaging design professional, I have seen pharmaceutical packaging evolve far beyond its traditional role of simply protecting and containing a drug product.
Packaging now plays a much more strategic role in drug development. It directly supports regulatory compliance, patient adherence, supply chain integrity, sustainability initiatives, and overall commercial success. Packaging designers are involved much earlier in the process, creating solutions that safeguard the therapy, enhance the patient experience, and enable efficient manufacturing and distribution.
Packaging is no longer something that should be considered just before launch. From my perspective, it is a critical element of product strategy, helping ensure therapies can be developed efficiently, delivered safely, and adopted confidently by patients and healthcare professionals. For me, patient-centricity is central to that evolution. As packaging designers, our role is to translate patient needs into tangible design solutions. Packaging and labeling need to account for patients’ needs, capabilities, behaviors, and real-world experiences.
A patient-centric approach should improve usability, medication adherence, product safety, and patient outcomes without compromising regulatory compliance or manufacturing efficiency. The strongest solutions bring those requirements together, satisfying regulatory, manufacturing, and commercial needs while improving the overall treatment experience.
When packaging decisions are made also matters. Pack design should be addressed during clinical development, preferably in Phase I and no later than Phase II, rather than being delayed until Phase III or commercialization.
Early involvement gives packaging development teams the opportunity to assess materials, container closure systems, patient requirements, manufacturing considerations, and regulatory expectations before they become project-critical challenges. More organizations are taking a proactive approach by integrating packaging sooner in the product lifecycle and recognizing its influence on product stability, commercial scalability, and launch success.
One of the most significant challenges we see is inheriting constraints created by late-stage decisions. Choices involving primary packaging materials, labeling architectures, package configurations, or distribution requirements can have cascading effects across stability, automation, regulatory approval, patient usability, and commercial scalability.
At PCI Pharma Services, our packaging designers apply Quality by Design and Design for Manufacturability principles throughout development. Both frameworks help us create solutions that are functional and user-focused, while remaining robust enough to be automated, validated, scaled, and consistently produced across commercial manufacturing operations.
Biologics and cold-chain products introduce another challenge: finding the right balance between product protection and efficiency. Distribution testing helps us understand how a package performs under real-world shipping conditions, allowing us to optimize pack configurations, reduce unnecessary material use, and maintain product integrity.
We recommend performing early feasibility distribution simulation studies to evaluate performance and create opportunities to refine designs during the development process. The iterative approach helps us shape a solution that protects valuable therapies, minimizes waste, and supports a dependable supply chain from manufacture to patient delivery.
Sustainability requires the same level of considered decision-making. The most sustainable package is not necessarily the one with the least plastic or the highest recycled content. A sustainable solution needs to protect the product, minimize waste across the value chain, optimize transportation and cold-chain efficiency, and be sourced reliably at commercial scale.
A holistic approach goes beyond simply choosing paper, bioplastics, or recyclable materials. Product integrity must remain the first priority. For temperature-sensitive therapies, improvements in package size, thermal performance, and distribution efficiency can often deliver greater environmental benefits than material substitution alone. Sourcing resilience also needs to be considered, as materials with limited supply options can introduce significant business continuity risks.
Looking ahead, I see the greatest impact coming from technologies and design approaches that improve patient experience, supply chain security, sustainability, and support for complex therapies. Packaging will become smarter, more personal, and increasingly integrated with the overall treatment journey.
I believe intelligent packaging will have the most transformative impact over the next decade. Smart packaging can incorporate technologies that monitor, record, communicate, or provide real-time information about the condition of a pharmaceutical product throughout its lifecycle.
Patient-focused developments will also continue to advance child-resistant packaging. New solutions need to address the dual challenge of preventing access by increasingly curious and resourceful children while maintaining ease of use for an aging patient population with reduced strength, dexterity, or vision. Smarter medication adherence technologies will have a role to play as well, helping improve safety, reduce medication errors, and deliver a more intuitive user experience for patients and caregivers.
When I look at where pharmaceutical packaging is heading, patient-centricity, smart technologies, sustainability, supply chain resilience, and the continued growth of biologics and advanced therapeutics will all play a part. Packaging will become more integral to the therapy itself, influencing everything from patient adherence and product protection to sustainability and supply chain performance.
Packaging will continue to evolve beyond the role of a container. Companies that recognize its strategic value within product development, rather than treating packaging as a final-stage activity, will be better equipped to navigate emerging challenges and capitalize on new opportunities across the healthcare landscape.