In pharmaceutical production, attention often focuses on the drug itself. However, minor components can often have the biggest impact. While stoppers, syringe plungers, cap liners, and septa may appear simple, they are essential to protecting, storing, and ultimately delivering pharmaceuticals to patients.
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As formulations increase in complexity, specifically with biologics, vaccines, and high‑potency drugs, the requirements for these components continue to rise. Once a background consideration, the drug-packaging interface is now critical to product performance, patient safety, and regulatory compliance, making it more valuable than ever.
To better comprehend how manufacturers are addressing these difficulties, Saint-Gobain PPL Corp connected with Michael Junglas, Global Market Manager, Specialty Films, who works closely with Norgard® Films. Their work with products such as PTFE, ETFE, FEP, PFA, and PFAS-free* polymers helps pharmaceutical clients better understand how these products function in practical drug applications.
Saint-Gobain® Norgard solutions are engineered to handle critical challenges at the drug-component interface. They include ETFE barrier films for vial stoppers and syringe plungers that enhance glide performance while reducing extractables, as well as skived PTFE cap liners and PTFE‑laminated septa systems that improve sealing integrity and support long‑term drug stability.
The following section explores six key insights to consider when assessing materials for pharmaceutical packaging and delivery systems.
7 key insights into how Norgard solutions enhance pharma performance
Insight #1: The drug–component interface is a critical risk point.
The contact point between a drug and its packaging or delivery system is one of the most sensitive phases in the pharmaceutical lifecycle. Even minor interactions between formulations and materials can result in extractables, leachables, particulates, absorption, or chemical degradation. These risks are particularly pronounced in biologics, vaccines, and other delicate therapies, where preserving stability is inherently more difficult. What used to be viewed as a secondary packaging option now plays a central role in risk management, directly impacting patient safety, regulatory approval, and shelf life.
Insight #2: Norgard Films create a high-purity, inert barrier where it matters most.
Designed specifically for pharmaceutical contact surfaces, Norgard PTFE and ETFE Films deliver extremely clean, chemically inert interfaces that substantially minimize interaction with drug formulations. These advanced fluoropolymers deliver high purity, exceptional chemical resistance, and minimal extractables, helping to protect against contamination and degradation.
Introducing a stable barrier between the drug and elastomeric or polymer components allows them to deliver a controlled environment that safeguards product integrity across the entire lifecycle.
Insight #3: Performance is proven across critical drug delivery components.
Norgard Films are engineered to boost performance across key applications. ETFE barrier films in vial stoppers and syringe plungers lower the risk of contamination while enhancing both glide and dosing consistency.
Skived PTFE films utilized in cap liners form a non-reactive sealing surface that preserves closure integrity over time. PTFE‑laminated septa combine elasticity with chemical inertness, enabling repeated access without jeopardizing purity. Together, these solutions enhance sealing, cleanliness, and dependability in challenging pharmaceutical settings.
Insight #4: Built for real-world production, from sterilization to scale.
Pharmaceutical components must withstand real manufacturing conditions, including sterilization, elevated temperatures, and high-speed automation. Norgard Films are engineered to maintain their mechanical and barrier characteristics while withstanding common sterilization techniques, including steam, gamma, and EtO (ethylene oxide).
Their thermoformability supports complex geometries and precision fabrication, helping ensure consistency, minimize defects, and streamline scale-up from development to commercialization.
Insight #5. Customization and testing ensure alignment with specific requirements.
Every application comes with distinct criteria, from chemical resistance and purity to friction control and produceability. Norgard solutions can be tailored through variation in thickness, surface treatment, texture, and multilayer construction to satisfy specific requirements.
Supported by sophisticated prototyping, environmental assessment, and reliability validation, this approach ensures alignment of materials with both product performance and manufacturing processes, minimizing risk and accelerating development timelines.
In pharmaceutical systems, the interface is where risk is either introduced, or eliminated. Precision materials are essential to protect what matters most: the integrity of the drug and the safety of the patient."
Michael Junglas, Global Market Manager, Specialty Films
Insight #6: Norgard materials support more than packaging; they enable broader pharma and biotech applications.
Beyond closures and delivery systems, Norgard Fluoropolymer Films are used across the broader life sciences ecosystem. Extruded fluoropolymer films, including FEP and other heat-sealable materials, are well-suited for fluid handling and cryogenic sample bags used in biotechnology and genetic research, where chemical inertness and low-temperature versatility are crucial.
In lab settings, Norgard Surface Protection Films keep workspaces clean, sterile, and damage-free by withstanding aggressive chemicals such as strong acids and bases while safeguarding against abrasion and scratches. These applications emphasize the same key material strengths: chemical resistance, durability, and purity, all of which extend across the pharmaceutical workflow.
Insight #7: More than materials: a partner focused on performance, compliance, and the future.
Saint-Gobain teams support Norgard solutions through a collaborative, partnership-driven approach. By working closely with clients to understand their formulations, production processes, and regulatory criteria, the team helps address crucial challenges including extractables, sealing performance, friction variation, and supply consistency. With worldwide production capabilities, rigorous regulatory documentation, and co-development of PFAS‑free* alternatives, Saint-Gobain supports both current requirements and future approaches.
The result is not just a material solution, but a dependable path to safer, more efficient, and more scalable pharmaceutical products.
Protect drug integrity across pharmaceutical applications
As pharmaceutical products grow more complex, demand for proven, high-performance materials continues to rise. Controlling the drug–component interface is now essential to delivering safe, stable, and dependable treatments at scale.
Partnering with Saint-Gobain Norgard Films gives manufacturers more than material performance; it gives them a collaborator dedicated to overcoming real challenges, speeding up development, and ensuring long-term success. From closures and delivery systems to bioprocessing and lab settings, these solutions help create consistency where it counts.
When performance, purity, and reliability are non-negotiable, the choice is clear: materials designed to protect what matters. Connect with our team today to learn more.
Acknowledgments
Produced from materials originally authored by Maggie Bieniek.
About Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions
Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions has been a leading global supplier of high-quality tapes, foams, and films for over five decades. Our extensive range of products includes adhesive tapes, bonding tapes, gasketing foams and specialty films, specifically designed to meet the needs of the most challenging applications in various industries, including electronics, energy, aerospace, industrial, automotive, construction and medical.
With a strong legacy of innovation, technical knowledge, and market leadership, we continue to work collaboratively with our customers to offer unbeatable support, superior quality, and unmatched application expertise to overcome diverse challenges. Choose Saint-Gobain Tape Solutions for all your tape, foam, and specialty film needs.
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