What are the commonly used pharmaceutical packaging materials?

What are the commonly used pharmaceutical packaging materials? Many people are likely curious about this. Here, we’ve compiled relevant information on common pharmaceutical packaging materials to help you.
① Glass: Glass offers advantages such as moisture resistance, ease of sealing, transparency, and relatively stable chemical properties. However, it also has several drawbacks, including its weight and fragility, and it may release alkaline substances and insoluble residues when exposed to aqueous solutions. To ensure drug quality, the pharmacopoeia stipulates that ampoules and large-volume infusion bottles must be made of hard, neutral glass; when containing drugs that are prone to degradation upon exposure to light, containers made of amber glass should be used.
② Plastics: Plastics offer advantages such as secure packaging, easy sealing, vibrant and transparent aesthetics, light weight, portability, and low cost. However, during manufacturing, plastics often contain additives—such as plasticizers and stabilizers—that may come into direct contact with the drug and undergo chemical reactions, thereby altering its quality. Additionally, plastics are permeable to gases and light and tend to adsorb substances, which can accelerate the oxidation and degradation of the drug, leading to spoilage.
③ Paper products: Widely sourced and low-cost, paper products exhibit some moisture resistance after being coated with a moisture-proof varnish. Their packaging volume can be customized to meet specific needs, and they are recyclable, making them one of the most extensively used packaging materials today. However, their drawbacks include low strength and susceptibility to deformation.
④ Metals: Commonly used materials include black iron sheet, galvanized iron sheet, tinplate, and aluminum foil. These packaging materials offer excellent pressure resistance and sealing performance, but they are relatively expensive.
Wood: With its compressive strength, it has long been a common material for external packaging; however, due to the depletion of forest resources, it has gradually been replaced by materials such as paper and plastic.
Composite materials: Composite materials are a rising star in the packaging industry, consisting of multiple layers such as plastic, paper, and aluminum foil. Common types include paper–plastic composites, aluminum foil–polyethylene composites, and aluminum foil–polyester–ethylene laminates. These composites exhibit excellent mechanical strength, resistance to biological degradation, vacuum‑retention properties, and compressive strength.
Rubber products: Primarily used as various stoppers for bottled pharmaceuticals, these components must exhibit excellent biochemical stability and superior sealing performance due to their direct contact with the drug, ensuring that exposure to air and moisture does not compromise product quality throughout the shelf life.
From a developmental perspective, packaging materials are trending toward replacing wood with paper, substituting paper for plastic, or forming various composite materials from paper, plastic, and aluminum foil. Meanwhile, the use of specialized packaging materials such as polytetrafluoroethylene, silicone resin, polyester composite panels, and expanded polyurethane is on the rise.