More than three times around the world – this is the dis­tance that the labels pro­duced by Schreiner Group each year would cover if strung together. The com­pany with head­quar­ters in Ober­schleis­sheim near Munich, Bavaria, was founded in 1951 and pro­vides solu­tions for a wide range of appli­ca­tions. The port­folio com­prises inno­v­a­tive func­tional labels including self-adhe­sive func­tional parts, RFID labels, printed elec­tronics and secu­rity solu­tions for product and doc­u­ment pro­tec­tion, as well as cus­tomized ser­vices and value-added services.

The Schreiner MediPharm busi­ness unit spe­cial­izes entirely in the require­ments of the phar­ma­ceu­tical and med­ical device industry. “There is a large demand for spe­cial labels in the health­care sector, for example to opti­mally admin­ister and track prod­ucts,” explains Stefan Wiede­mann, Senior Director Strategic Mar­keting and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at Schreiner MediPharm. “With our high-quality labels, we are con­tributing to safe med­ical treatments.”

Each indi­vidual Needle-Trap label car­ries an accu­rately applied needle catcher.

Simple idea, easy application

Patient safety and the pro­tec­tion of med­ical per­sonnel was also the dri­ving factor behind one of Schreiner MediPharm’s greatest product suc­cesses, the Needle-Trap needle pro­tec­tion system. It addresses a pressing problem in health­care: In Euro­pean hos­pi­tals and med­ical prac­tices alone, more than one mil­lion needle­stick injuries occur every year. Schreiner MediPharm’s Needle-Trap secures the needle after injec­tion, thus min­i­mizing the risk of injury and helping to pre­vent infections.

“Our teams agreed that pre­ci­sion must come first, as the exact posi­tioning of the needle catcher on the label is an impor­tant aspect.”Stefan Wiede­mann, Senior Director Strategic Mar­keting and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at Schreiner MediPharm

Stefan Wiede­mann explains the idea: “A pre-filled syringe always requires a label con­taining all rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion. This is where our Needle-Trap comes into play. We com­bine the label with an inte­grated needle catcher that serves to secure the needle after injec­tion. Thus, to mark the pre-filled syringe, phar­ma­ceu­tical man­u­fac­turers receive from us a label and a pro­tec­tive mech­a­nism in one, a unique principle.”

Step by step toward higher safety

1 First, bend the trap towards the side by approx­i­mately 90 degrees.

2 Remove the cap.

3 Per­form the injec­tion (as usual).

4 Secure the needle by placing the trap against a hard, stable sur­face, using one hand. Then press down the trap.

5 Bend the trap until the needle audibly clicks into the plastic part.

6 Dis­pose of the syringe with the secured needle in the nearest sharps container.

Its appli­ca­tion is as simple as the idea: Prior to injec­tion, users simply have to bend the needle catcher towards the side and remove the cap. The sub­se­quent injec­tion process is as usual and syringe han­dling remains unchanged. In order to acti­vate the safety mech­a­nism, the trap has to be pressed against a stable sur­face with one hand. An acoustic signal indi­cates when the needle is fixed in the trap and thus secured.

New chal­lenges

Schreiner MediPharm has worked closely with Harro Höfliger since the begin­ning of product devel­op­ment. Hartmut Thier, Director Web Tech­nolo­gies at Harro Höfliger, describes the early stage of the col­lab­o­ra­tion. “Needle-Trap posed com­pletely new chal­lenges to web pro­cessing. While we had a lot of expe­ri­ence in label pro­cessing, the com­bi­na­tion with the plastic part – the trap – was new. An ini­tial test set-up quickly showed that our idea for the man­u­fac­turing process worked.”

Stefan Wiede­mann sum­ma­rizes the chal­lenges: “Our teams agreed that pre­ci­sion must come first, as the exact posi­tioning of the needle catcher on the label is an impor­tant aspect.”

“While we had a lot of expe­ri­ence in label pro­cessing, the com­bi­na­tion with the plastic part – the trap – was new.” Hartmut Thier, Director Web Tech­nolo­gies at Harro Höfliger

A wide range of inspec­tion systems

Based on these require­ments, Harro Höfliger designed sev­eral pro­duc­tion lines over the fol­lowing years. These ensure that high-pre­ci­sion robots place a needle catcher on each label. At the same time, var­ious inspec­tion sys­tems check whether all traps are per­fectly posi­tioned. “This inspec­tion data goes into a dig­ital batch report which enables end-to-end trace­ability. Thus, it is ensured that only flaw­less prod­ucts leave the pro­duc­tion lines in order to meet the high quality stan­dards,” explains Hartmut Thier.

The fin­ished Needle-Trap labels are exactly wound onto reels.

Quan­tity meets quality

To date, Schreiner MediPharm has pro­duced more than 1.2 bil­lion Needle-Traps on the joint machines. According to Stefan Wiede­mann, this suc­cess is explained by the fact that the product meets the require­ments of med­ical per­sonnel and phar­ma­ceu­tical industry alike. “Its com­pact design makes Needle-Trap an effi­cient and at the same time cost-effec­tive solu­tion. Demand remains high, since our needle pro­tec­tion system can be used for all common pre-filled syringes. And with machines from Harro Höfliger, we do not have to choose between high output and impec­cable quality of each single product.”

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Photos: Gernot Walter, Schreiner MediPharm, Janine Kyofsky