Gil Y. Roth11.06.09
Newsmakers: Peter Mayberry
The executive director of the HCPC steps down after two decades
By Gil Y. Roth
Peter Mayberry has been involved with the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council for two decades, serving as executive director. He’ll be stepping down from his role there at the end of 2009, so we took the occasion to talk about his tenure, the progress of compliance packaging in the U.S., the role of contract packagers in helping the drug industry move away from bottled pills, and the importance of Wal-Mart in reshaping pharmacy practices.
If you’d like to get in touch with Mr. Mayberry, he can be reached at pgmayberry@aol.com. —GYR
Contract Pharma: The HCPC was founded in 1990. What progress has it made in promoting unit-dose drug packaging in America?
Peter Mayberry: I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved at HCPC over the past two decades. I’d say we’ve seen quite a transformation, especially in the past 10 years, in the industry’s embrace of compliance-prompting packaging. When HCPC began 20 years ago, pharmaceutical companies didn’t even want to talk about packaging. Now we have companies like AstraZeneca and Pfizer making waves with their development projects to take drugs out of big bottles and into unit dose packaging. At our membership meeting in mid-November, AZ will give a presentation on its unit dose plans.
CP: What accounts for this change of heart?
PM: I think it’s driven by economics. Ten years ago, the pipelines at major pharma companies were very robust. As they’ve grown less so, the companies need to boost their bottom lines. One way to do that is to use packaging that increases patient compliance. That they understand better packaging leads to that is a success in HCPC’s advocacy and education efforts.
CP: Has that advocacy and education trickled down to the American public?
PM: Not directly, but when a company as big as Wal-Mart begins using unit dose packaging to distribute generic drugs at its pharmacies, you know you’re making progress.
CP: What are they using?
PM: Wal-Mart uses the Shellpak from MeadWestVaco for its $4 generic prescription program, and may be distributing as many as eight million units each month. So the pressure for unit dose may have to come from the pharmacy side of the business, but as long as this type of packaging is on the rise, it’s a win-win-win for pharma companies, pharmacies and consumers.
The drug manufacturers gain through safety and greater patient compliance, the pharmacies reduce expense and dosing error by not having to repackage from bottles, and consumers get greater assurance in authenticity, effectiveness and better outcomes from adherence.
CP: Do you think a market-based push like this will get the branded pharma companies to use unit dose packaging?
PM: It’s more likely than consumer demand, which isn’t very strong in the U.S. It’s a lot easier to educate Wal-Mart — which is focused on supply chain efficiencies — on these benefits. That company began looking at pharmaceutical distribution for 10 years; they saw it was loose and could be tightened.
CP: What are the obstacles in branded pharma really adopting this type of packaging?
PM: One issue is that large pharma manufacturers have balked at the lack of standardization. They don’t want to be tied to one type of packaging. That said, those companies really do get it, but they also understand that it requires a huge change in infrastructure to move from high-speed bottle filling to blister packaging and the like.
CP: What role do you think contract packagers will play in this?
PM: Looking in my crystal ball, I’d say that the next 24 to 36 months will see a tremendous demand in contract packaging and pharmacy repackging services. Those companies have the infrastructure in place. In keeping with larger trends in the pharmaceutical industry, as big companies do more outsourcing, they want to make less capital-intensive infrastructure investments. So there is a big opportunity for contract packagers.
CP: Tell me about some other challenges HCPC is taking on.
PM: HCPC is still fighting the good fight! Right now, the council is trying to get the FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs to move off of its ban on calendarization for generics. The OGD currently won’t let a generic marketer use calendarization of a blister-pack unless the branded version of the drug had that calendarization specified in its NDA.
It’s not a very well thought-out position by the OGD, and we’re lobbying to get it changed. In July, we met with the staff of the president’s panel on health reform to explain the issue to them. We explained that adding calendarization would help to improve healthcare outcomes, reduce healthcare spending, and wouldn’t change any of the prescribing language set forth by the original manufacturer.
We showed them data on the scope of the non-compliance problem and estimates that improving adherence nationwide by a mere 10% could provide annual savings of at least $20 billion to the U.S. economy.