english.prescrire.org > Annual Prescrire Awards > The Prescrire Awards for 2011 > The 2011 Prescrire Awards: granted in total independence by Prescrire's Editorial Staff > 2011 Packaging Awards > About the 2011 Drug Packaging Awards

The Prescrire Awards for 2011

The 2011 Prescrire Awards: granted in total independence by Prescrire's Editorial Staff

The 2011 Prescrire Packaging Awards
About the 2011 Drug Packaging Awards


The Packaging Awards focus on the quality of packaging for drugs evaluated during the previous year in the New Products section of our French edition (in 2011: issues 327 to 338).

> Rules governing the Prescrire Awards (in French, pdf)

 

Throughout the year, the editorial staff systematically examines the packaging of several hundred pharmaceutical products. This provides us with an opportunity to identify high-quality packaging and to detect dangerous packaging that is a potential source of confusion and errors, in order to inform our readers.

Painstaking analysis
Every aspect of the packaging is examined: the labelling on boxes, blister packs, vials, syringes; any devices provided for drug preparation or administration; caps and stoppers, and the legibility and quality of the information provided in the patient leaflet regarding the conditions of use, adverse reactions and interactions, and any recommended non-drug measures.

Independent rating
At the end of each year, the Packaging Awards are granted following a review of the year’s standardised forms by the Prescrire Packaging Working Group, in total independence and with no input from drug or packaging manufacturers (See rules, above).

Too many red and yellow cards in 2011
Prescrire has been examining drug packaging for three decades, representing more than 5000 packages analysed. This activity contributes to various projects, including the articles published in Prescrire, actions aimed at improving professional practice (such as the Preventing the Preventable programme at evitable.prescrire.org), and contributions to European public consultations.

This year’s Packaging Awards highlight the poor overall quality of drug packaging in 2011
The method used to prepare the Awards has remained unchanged over the years, meaning that the steady increase in the number of yellow and red cards simply reflects the state of the market. High-quality packaging is now so rare that the product to which the Packaging Award was granted in 2011 does nothing but to bring together all the basic requirement for quality packaging. The packaging in question was designed by Établissement pharmaceutique of Assistance Publique- Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) (EPHP) (a), which is no doubt more sensitive to the real needs of hospital practitioners than to the greed of BigPharma shareholders.

Even after France’s Mediator° (benfluorex) scandal, health authorities are still failing to pay sufficient attention to the quality of drug packaging.

Note:
a- EPHP is part of Ageps (Agence générale des équipements et des produits de santé) of APHP, Paris's public hospitals. Ageps provides various services, including evaluation and purchase of healthcare products, clinical research and development, and the manufacture and availability of drugs with marketing authorisations.

©Prescrire Février 2012

"The 2011 Prescrire Awards" Prescrire Int 2012; 21 (125): 78-82. (pdf, free)