A leading Indian pharmaceutical company, based in Ireland was due to
release a new generic product onto the Italian market. Before the
product was due to be launched, it was discovered by the Indian company
that they had printed the wrong expiry dates on the blister packs.
Subsequently, they needed the existing expiry dates removed and
replaced with the valid dates. The decision was taken to contract the
repackaging job to both an Italian pharmaceutical company and also to
Millmount Healthcare in Ireland. This decision was arrived at for a
number of reasons:
The Italian pharmaceutical company was perceived to be
more competitive in terms of Lead Time than Millmount and with the
product already delayed in terms of its release onto the Italian
market; they were given the first half of the order to repackage.
Millmount
Healthcare, however, was seen as more competitive in terms of their
price, than their Italian counterparts. The decision was also made to
ship the products to Ireland for the second half of the repackaging
job.
Once the decision was made to divide the repackaging job evenly
between Millmount Healthcare and the Italian pharmaceutical company,
both organisations delivered their proposals to the Indian
manufacturers.
Millmount decided to cover up the existing faulty expiry date and batch
number by darkening the area. They would then print the batch number
and the correct expiry dates either side of the darkened area.
The Italian company, on the other hand, decided to replace the faulty
expiry dates and batch number with an adhesive sticker stating the
correct expiry date. When the Indian manufacturers received both
proposals, they accepted that of Millmount Healthcare’s and rejected
the Italian pharmaceuticals proposal.
Under the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) guidelines, if a
pharmaceutical organisation wishes to hide incorrect information on
their products, they must completely wipe out that information or
darken the area, just as Millmount Healthcare had done. With their
proposal rejected, the Italian pharmaceutical company had to return to
the Indian manufacturers with a new concept on how to approach the job
at hand. Due to the delay caused by their error Millmount Healthcare
was competitively in front of their Italian counterparts both on
quality and on price, repackaging the product at both half the time and
for half the price.
