Why do some pills, like Tylenol, come in a loose form inside a bottle, while others are individually packaged in separate pouches?
Is this because some pills are more abused/misused? Does size play a factor? Small Pill = Different packaging.
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Some pills need to be protected from agitation through shipping. They get damaged when they rub up against each other, some pills react to oxygen or other gasses in the atmosphere so the blister pact protects against both of these.
In the UK, medications containing acetaminophen, are required to be in blister packs as a suicide prevention mechanism because often times, suicide is a “spur of the moment” action and Tylenol was a common way of committing suicide. Putting it in a blister pack added one more barrier to prevent people from doing this.
https://nclnet.org/will_repackaging_medicine_prevent_suicides/
it’s also location based
where I live – all meds (almost all!) come individually packaged (in foil pop-out sheets). It has to do with the legal regulations for pharmacist errors, etc
As others said, regulation. And also to note that blister packs are relatively more expensive so manufacturers may default to bottles where they can.
Used to be able to buy pseudoephedrine HCl (sudafed) in a bottle with loose red pills.
Now it has to be bought with id , in those stupid foil packages, from behind a counter.
Foil packaging has nothing to do with protecting the pills, it is intended to keep people from buying large quantities and making illegal drugs.
May not be true for all drugs.
A few years ago, I was going through security at an airport and for whatever reason, they were extremely thrown off by my prescription medication that was individually wrapped in what looked like foil. The guy was asking so many dumb questions and then asked why they were each wrapped and I said “I’m not certain but I would assume if they melt out of shape it makes them a lot harder to get them up your ass” and he could not have looked more disgusted. Haha like don’t worry dude they’re suppositories but not used ones
I think gels come in blister packs. I recall hearing that they were invented in response to a series of random poisonings in which someone had been injecting poison via syringe. The foil blister packs would show a visible hole from tampering.
It varies with location. For example, in Europe, there are very strict laws about getting the correct number of doses in a container.
When the law came in, drug companies did studies, and found that machines which counted pills and dropped them into a bottle were too inaccurate – too many bottles had an extra pill or a missing pill.
The solution was to put the pills into individual pouches. These could be counted very reliably. This was an easy way to sell pills legally, and so became the standard method used in Europe.
Many times blister packs are used to protect the tablet or softgel from moisture (why foil is used). The drug product only gets exposed to ambient conditions when the blister seal is broken versus when the bottle is opened. In general Europe prefers blisters and the US bottles. Bottles are generally cheaper because you don’t need a blister machine, just a bottle, dessicant, and an induction sealer.
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