Pharma labels

Pharmaceutical labels include drug and medical labels, among others. These differ from any other type in that they are often subject to counterfeiting. To protect brands from such bad practices, label converters have to invest in additional brand protection measures, such as micro text and raised images. Apart from that, pharmaceutical labels require fine details and are often printed on certified substrate.

For these circumstances, digital dry toner technology is recommended.
 

1) Image quality of pharmaceutical labels

Above anything else, pharmaceutical labels need to be clearly legible for the end user, even the smallest letters and number. For the label converter, this means an investment in high-resolution printing technology. For this, digital presses equipped with dry toner are your best choice, as they can achieve a print resolution of 1200 dpi and give consistent results.

In other words, every label will look exactly the same - which is simply unattainable with UV inkjet, where variation is almost unavoidable. Any malfunction of the nozzle has a direct impact on print quality.

Other technologies (liquid toner and UV inkjet) have a lower resolution of 800 - 360 dpi.
 

2) Brand protection

In order to outsmart counterfeiters label converters and brand owners can do three things:

• Build counterfeit deterrence, product authentication and brand protection technologies into the design of the label or package from the very beginning.
• Combine technologies so as to provide the most effective overall brand protection solution.
• Try and make each individual package or label unique.
• Change the solutions on a frequent basis in order to keep ahead of the counterfeiter

In other words, it’s all about being unique, being able to distinguish the genuine product from the fake one. The 1200 dpi Xeikon with dry toner technology does just that.
 

3) Certified substrates

The substrates used by the pharmaceutical industry are in many cases certified by the brand owner. Altering the composition can lead to requalification, which is highly undesirable both for the printer and the brand owner. Dry toner provides the ability to print on all standard materials without any primer or pretreatment.

Conclusion

In order to achieve high-quality results that are hard to counterfeit and that can be used on certified substrates, digital printing technology with dry toner is essential. The Xeikon CX3 combines a number of useful features for pharmaceutical label converters, such as:

• superb label printing quality (true 1200 dpi)
• printing speed up to 30m/min
• seamless digital front-end integration
• full-rotary printing
• great service

Download white paper

More on food label printing? Would you like a more in-depth look at the different digital printing technologies?

• Download our white paper ‘Digital label printing technologies: No one size fits all’
• or get in touch
   

For our complete digital label press line-up, visit our label pages.

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