Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Hollow or container type article – Polymer or resin containing
Reexamination Certificate
1997-12-16
2004-01-20
Nolan, Sandra M. (Department: 1772)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Hollow or container type article
Polymer or resin containing
C428S036920
Reexamination Certificate
active
06680091
ABSTRACT:
The present invention relates to a medicament container for storing a liquid medicament, use of such medicament container, and a medicament container at least partly filled with medicament.
Traditionally, medicament containers for storing liquid medicaments and preparations have been made of glass. For certain medicaments, such as medicaments for peroral administration, containers of opaque polyethylenes or polyesters have also been used. Such a polymer container made of a polyglycolic acid polyester and a terephthalic polyester is e.g. described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,565,851. This container provides a very good barrier against oxygen and other gasses, but it does not provide a sufficient barrier against preservatives and water.
Medicaments, such as insulin or growth hormone, are distributed in small containers or ampoules. Such ampoules normally comprise between 1.5 and 10 ml of ready-to-use medicament. These ampoules are stored in stock, at the hospitals or pharmacies, and with the user. This means that the shelf-life must be sufficiently long. Aqueous solutions or suspensions of medicaments, such as insulin or growth hormones, are normally provided with a preservative, such as phenol and/or benzyl alcohol and/or m-cresol. Addition of preservatives is necessary because a terminal sterilisation is not possible due to the sensitivity of medicaments containing proteins, peptides and/or DNA sequences. Medicaments in containers comprising more than one dose, e.g. for use in pen systems, are at a high risk of contamination. Therefore, preservatives are essential ingredients in such medicaments, in particular in medicaments for parenteral administration. Phenol, benzyl alcohol and m-cresol are approved in small amounts for use in parenteral medicaments, e.g. for intramuscular administration. Aqueous solutions or suspensions of medicaments comprising a preservative may be stored in glass containers for up to 2 years.
The article “Interaction between aqueous preservative solutions and their plastic containers, III” by T. J. McCarthy, Pharm. Weekblad 107 (1972), describes the effects storing certain aqueous solutions of preservatives in containers of polypropylene (PP) coloured with white pearl pigment and poly(vinylchloride) (PVC), respectively, in particular with respect to the loss of preservatives from the solutions. There were no discussions about storing aqueous solutions of preservatives in transparent containers. Further, the conclusion in this article is that large amounts of some types of preservatives are lost from the solutions stored in PP. PVC, however, seems to provide a good barrier against preservatives. As a consequence of its chlorine content, PVC is not acceptable for use due to environmental pollution.
Tarr et al., “Stability and sterility of biosynthetic human insulin stored in plastic insulin syringe for 28 days”, American Society of Hospital Pharmacists, vol. 48, pages 2631-34, 1991, describes a similar test of storing aqueous solutions of phenol, benzyl alcohol and m-cresol, respectively, in polypropylene-polyethylene syringes, in particular with respect to the loss of phenol, benzyl alcohol and m-cresol, respectively, from the solutions.
The test covers only 28 days, but from this test it is concluded that the polypropylene-polyethylene syringes cannot be used for storing medicaments comprising phenol and/or benzyl alcohol and/or m-cresol. Insulin or growth hormone containing ampoules are normally stored at refrigerator temperature about 5° C. when stored in stock or at hospitals or pharmacies. When stored with the user, they are often stored at room temperature for up to one month. In particular insulin is stored at room temperature, because the user normally has to carry insulin with him or her all the time. The concentration of insulin and preservative must be close to constant within the storage period. If the concentration of preservative is too low, the medicament will not be sufficiently preserved. It could be suggested to prepare the medicament with a higher initial concentration of preservative. This would, however, not be acceptable for parenteral use. The loss of water should also be very low during the time of storage, because losing a too large amount of water would result in a too high concentration of active medicament, and possibly a too high concentration of preservatives. If too much water is lost, the user may get an overdose of the active medicament, such as insulin.
Further, it is important that the user can visually inspect the medicament to make sure that the medicament is not crystallised or polymerised due to e.g. self association or denaturation, or that any other visually detectable change of the medicament has occurred, such as oxidation of the active medicament.
The object of the present invention is to provide a medicament container of a polymer material, which material is substantially inert to the medicament, and which container is transparent and provides a good barrier against m-cresol/phenol/benzyl alcohol and water, respectively.
Another object of the invention is to provide a medicament container, which is cheap and easy to produce.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a medicament container for long-time storage of aqueous medicaments, such as aqueous solutions of insulin or human growth hormone.
The medicament containers according to the present invention for storing a liquid medicament comprising one or more active medicaments, water and m-cresol and/or phenol and/or benzyl alcohol, comprises a distal and a proximal end portion and a wall, at least two portions of the wall herein also referred to as wall sections, being of a polymer material. These polymer wall portions have a thickness of between 0.3 mm and 3 mm, preferably between 0.5 mm and 1 mm, a light transmission at 400 nm of 25% or more, measured through both of the opposite container wall portions when the container is filled with water, using a standard spectrophotometer and air as reference, and the polymer wall portions being of a material comprising at least 70% by weight of a copolymer material composed of aliphatic cyclic or bicylic hydrocarbons with 5 to 7 membered ring or rings and ethylene or propylene, the material having a glass transition temperature above 50° C., measured by differential scanning calorimetry, by cutting pieces from the container walls and heating them in an aluminium pan from 10° C. to 270° C. at a scanning rate of 10° C./min, the glass transition temperature being determined as the temperature at the inflection point, and a density of 0.95 g/cm
3
or more.
The material may comprise up to 5% by weight of additives in particular selected from antioxidants, lubricants such as stearates and silicones, surface active agents, nucleating and clarifying agents, and up to 30% by weight of inert fillers, such as glass particles having a refractive index about equal to the refractive index of the polymer material, the total amount of additives and fillers being up to 30% by weight.
As explained above, the scattering and absorbence of visible light of the material must be low in order to control the quality of the medicament in the container. Quality control can be a visual inspection for foreign particles, homogeneity of a suspension, sedimentation of crystals, precipitation in solutions, fibrillation or polymerisation of peptides or proteins in solutions, and changes in the absorbance spectrum of the medicament solution.
Most critical are changes which affect the concentration of the active medicament or drug in the solution, and of these, a polymerisation or a precipitation can be very difficult for a user to observe, especially if the container has a low light transmission.
For some insulin formulations, it is important that a diabetic patient can visually observe if more than 3% of the insulin are polymerised. The polymerised insulin can visually and with a spectrophotometer be observed as a change in light transmission. The typical change in transmission from an insulin solution where 3% of the insulin are polymerised, corres
Buch-Rasmussen Thomas
Jannasch Patric
Jørgensen Erling Bonne
Began, Esq. Marc A.
Book, Esq. Richard W.
Green, Esq. Reza
Nolan Sandra M.
Novo Nordisk A S
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