Nelipak Laboratory Services Now Offers Packaging Aging Testing
Nelipak® Laboratory Services (“Nelipak”), a leading provider of healthcare packaging testing for the medical device and pharmaceutical sectors, now offers a range of accelerated and real-time aging testing to determine the shelf life of products, which is a major part of medical device manufacturers’ product development process.
Sterile products, which must maintain a sterile barrier over long periods of time, are vital in the medical industry. It is rarely feasible to perform only real-time aging of a product in order to determine its suitability for use after several years. Therefore, other options must be considered. Due to the need to get a product to market as quickly as possible, accelerated aging is a common solution, and Nelipak’s accelerated aging testing enables quicker product development.
Based on the ASTM standard F1980, this testing allows a product to be stored under a set temperature over a specified period of time. This extra stress, which is more severe than normal environmental conditions, causes an accelerated variation in the packaging properties over time. Using the Arrhenius equation, a temperature can be selected to calculate a time period for accelerated aging. For example, a product normally stored at 23°C which undergoes accelerated aging at 50°C would be equivalently aged one year after only 57 days or five years after 281 days.
Nelipak Laboratory Services offers a range of accelerated aging chambers set at a variety of controlled temperatures to suit our customers’ accelerated aging needs. The chambers are also set at controlled humidity, which gives customers the chance to perform additional studies of their product’s longevity during the aging process. These conditions are monitored 24/7 by the Nelipak'ssystem, ensuring the customers’ products complete the aging process correctly.
Nelipak Laboratory Services also offers real-time aging testing. Products can be stored at ambient conditions, which are constantly monitored – providing customers with peace of mind that products can complete their aging without issues.
