Pharmapack Europe 2023 Award Winners – ATB West for Patient Centric Design

Vladimir Altshuler - Head of ATB Group (middle) and Olga Nalivaiko - assistant of the Head of ATB Group (right).

We interview the winners of the Pharmapack Europe Awards 2023, who were chosen by a jury, and each developed an innovative solution in the categories of Drug Delivery Innovation, Packaging Innovation, Sustainability Initiative, Eco-Design, and Patient-Centric Design. 

Please can you give a little bit of background information about yourself, your team and ATB-West Ltd?

ATB-WEST Ltd is an innovative enterprise with its own production base and scientific laboratory that for over 20 years has specialised in the development and manufacturing of unique and reliable counterfeit protection means.

Our highly qualified specialists and workers have extensive work experience and are continuously working to improve their knowledge and skills, and embrace new technologies. The material and technical base of the enterprise is also constantly being improved and updated. Thanks to all this we provide reliable marking, identification, monitoring, and product quality inspection in various branches; particularly in pharmacy.

Our innovative methods of protection of medicines against counterfeiting do not have any equivalents in the world. They include:
-    Latentogram on blister foil and cardboard packaging
-    Self-adhesive labels with different degrees of protection.

Congratulations on winning the award for Patient-Centric Design for your product, Latentogram, please can you describe the product for us and what makes it so unique? 

Thank you for the congratulations! 

Latentogram is a unique innovative method of counterfeit protection that represents the thinnest polymer layer with a latent polarised image with the thickness from 1–2 microns. A latent image becomes visible in natural light with the help of an authenticity identifier – a polaroid glass.

Our innovative technology doesn’t have any equivalents in the world. It has proved its efficiency in various branches – food, alcohol and tobacco, textile and shoes, documents, labels, and others. For the first time we propose to use Latentogram for the protection of pharmaceutical products – protection of blister foil and cardboard packaging.

The protection application doesn’t change the packaging design and layout of packaging, so you aren’t required to re-register medicines at public authorities and certification bodies. The applied polymer layer is not an obstacle to extracting medicines from blister packaging and it doesn’t impact on the microbiological purity of blister foil. Latentogram is noted for its high resistance to erasing, changes in temperature, and high humidity while preserving its aesthetic appeal. Latentogram can withstand temperatures up 250 °C.

Latent images can be customised and contain text or graphic data, logos or QR codes. Thus, manufacturers have the opportunity to create unique design solutions.

Our innovative anti-counterfeit solution helps to ensure medical brands’ integrity and high security with a priority on human health.

Can you describe how the idea and development of this product came about? 

Every year there are more and more fake products in the world. Increasingly, we hear news about the counterfeiting of medicines. And if the counterfeit of brand things affects the brand image, then the counterfeit of medicines has more negative consequences. It was our desire to make human life safer that inspired and motivated us to use our innovative technology to protect medicines and create security solutions for primary and secondary packaging.

What impact do you think the pharmaceutical packaging industry becoming more patient-centric will have on the life of patients and work of clinicians?

The pharmaceutical packaging industry is becoming more patient-centric in the last few years. This trend has a very positive impact on the life of patients and the work of clinicians. Patient-centric packaging is protected and safe, it inspires confidence in both patients and clinicians while using medicines. In addition, patient-centric packaging is convenient to use, it makes the life of patients and the work of clinicians much more comfortable.

How will winning the award here at Pharmapack help support you as a company? 

We are grateful for such high evaluation of our innovative technology of product protection against counterfeiting. It’s a great honour for us to present our innovative solutions worldwide. Certainly, Pharmapack Awards 2023 helped us to make ourselves known, to get acquainted with the community, and to present our product. We hope to use this win to continue to promote Latentogram for use in pharmaceutical packaging. 

What more can we look forward to seeing from ATB-West in the future?

Our company continues to develop and now we are working on new innovative projects for protection against counterfeiting. We hope that next year we’ll be able to present our new project and surprise you all!