From:Packaging World

New report examines the regulatory environment and sterile packaging standards by region; predicts 5.72% CAGR for the market through 2020.

By Jim Butschli, Editor Healthcare Packaging

Increasing applications of sterile packaging in the pharmaceutical and biological sectors, an aging population, and the rise of chronic diseases are all contributing to growth in the sterile medical packaging market.

On the flip side, maintaining medical packaging integrity can act as a challenge to the growth of the market for sterile medical packaging.

From a global standpoint, the emerging Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions show strong growth, yet the North America market dominated sterile medical packaging in 2014, with the largest share among all the regions.

This is mainly due to rising healthcare awareness and continuous innovation and technological developments in both pharmaceutical and medical industries, which are transforming the healthcare packaging industry further, thereby driving the growth of the sterile medical packaging market.

These findings come from the report, "Regulatory Environment and Impact Analysis - Sterile Packaging Market Standards & Regulations, Regional & National Regulatory Bodies - Market Analysis & Forecast to 2020,” published by MarketsandMarkets.

The report projects the market for sterile medical packaging grow from US$26.55 billion in 2015 to US$35.07 billion by 2020, at an estimated Compound Annual Growth Rate of 5.72%.

MarketsandMarkets explains, “The regulatory framework in North America is organized, effective, strong, and transparent. Factors such as timelines for the medical device approval process, cost for placing the product in the market, and ease of doing business have been considered for defining the structure of the sterile medical device regulatory framework.

“In North America, the regulations implemented by governing bodies such as the U.S. FDA and ASTM have been followed as international standards and regulations by different countries across the region. While in the Asia-Pacific, factors such as longer timelines for approving the medical devices in Australia, red tapism in India, and higher cost for approval of the medical device make the regulatory framework in the region complex as compared to the regulatory environment in North America and Europe.”