Medical Packaging Conference is an annual educational conference unveiling current medical device packaging trends and regulatory changes globally.

Our focus this year will be on advancing sustainability and patient safety. Join us as we explore how the industry is exploring ways to help advance sustainability for healthcare packaging while increasing patient safety. This virtual conference will provide you with a unique opportunity to engage with industry experts across the value chain – from raw material suppliers to healthcare practitioners.

  • Learn about upcoming regulatory developments shaping the healthcare packaging
  • Understand the challenges hospitals are facing managing healthcare packaging waste
  • Discover how to create more sustainable and safer healthcare packaging
  • Hear about the latest findings from usability evaluation of different packaging designs

DATE: 26-27 October 2021
TIME: Starting from 9.00am (EST) / 3.00pm (CET) / 9.00pm (CCT)

 
 
 

 

AGENDA

 

October 26, 2021: Medical Packaging Essentials

 

October 27, 2021: Clinical aspects of medical packaging

 

 


 

PRESENTERS

 

Thierry Wagner

Thierry Wagner has spent over 30 years working for DuPont in its polyester films and nonwovens businesses and currently as Global Director, Regulatory & Standards – Healthcare, DuPont – Safety & Construction. 

He is convenor of ISO/TC 198/WG7 “Sterilization of Health Care Products—Packaging” and CEN/ TC 102/WG4 “Sterilizers and associated equipment for processing of medical devices – Packaging”, chairman of the Sterile Barrier Association (SBA), member of the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) and actively involved in various ISO and CEN technical committees on medical and pharmaceutical packaging, sterilization and aseptic processing.

Thierry is also a member of ISO/TC 210 in charge of ISO 13485 and medical device symbols (ISO 15223 series), ASTM Committee F02 and of the CEN Advisory Board for Healthcare Standards - Europe (CEN ABHS). Thierry Wagner earned a master’s degree in mechanical and process engineering from ETH Zürich in Switzerland.  He is a featured speaker at international conferences and seminars on medical and pharmaceutical packaging regulatory aspects.

 

Damian Rodriguez

Damian has gained 20 years of experience in Medical and Pharmaceutical Industry. (Edwards, B.Braun Medical Inc.) and is focused on: generating significant savings and value improvement/creation through environmental sustainable solutions, SME for Medical Packaging using FFS technology, SME on Pharma Serialization, Continuous Improvement and Engineering Service Management, Active member of IOPP, MDPTC as well as consulting for the Medical and Pharma Industry.

Academic Background: Lifetime Certified Packaging Professional, IOPP, Certified Master Project Manager with Villanova, Executive Development Program, Barna Management School, Six Sigma Black Belt, Quantum TC / B.Braun, Masters Project Management, UNPHU, Green Belt, Six Sigma Qualtec / EW, Lean Champion, EMS Consulting, Industrial Engineer, INTEC.

 

Christopher Victory

Christopher has been a Senior Mechanical Engineer for 15 years with the Facilities, Planning and Development department of Michigan Medicine. His primary duties are managing outside engineering firms in the design and construction of major building renovations or new buildings. In addition to his engineering duties, he has been active in our hospital’s environmental stewardship committee since 2008. Over time his involvement in sustainability within our health system has grown. So much so, in 2016 Christopher accepted a 50% role to head up all things related to sustainability for our institution.

 

Dr. Isabelle Jenny

Sustainability Manager at Amcor Flexibles Europe Middle East and Africa, Isabelle JENNY holds an engineer degree in polymer chemistry from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris and a PhD in Polymer Chemistry.

She has been with Amcor since 2003 as a packaging development engineer and then as sustainability manager.

Isabelle has more than 15 years’ experience in life cycle assessment and design for recycling study in the food, pharmaceutical and medical flexible packaging market.

She has also an expertise in sustainable sourcing, on biodegradable and compostable packaging and on flexible packaging recyclability.

She is involved in the several EU initiatives:

Member of the CEFLEX workstreams were the objective is to at drive development of recycling options for flexible packaging in Europe: https://ceflex.eu/

Member of Recyclass Advisory Board and Technical Committee for HDPE & PP & PS rigid and PO film/flexible plastic packaging: https://recyclass.eu/

Member of HPRC Europe were the objective is enabling Plastic Recycling Solutions in Healthcare: https://www.hprc.org/

Work package leader of Multicycle, a three-year EC Horizon 2020 innovation project were the objective is to demonstration of the potential of recovered materials in packaging from a CreaSolv® pilot plant process: http://multicycle-project.eu/

Coordinate the Technical Secretariat of the PEFCR (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) Flexible Packaging and member of the PEF Technical Advisory Board: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/ef_transition.htm

Member ASI (Aluminium Stewardship Initiative) and the ASI GHG working group were the objective is to implement Responsible Aluminium AF EMEA: https://aluminium-stewardship.org/

 

Dr. Selena Qin

Selena Qin joined DuPont in 2011 with over 25 years of experience in medical industry. She received her M.D. degree in 1995 from medical school, and practiced medicine as a radiologist and a surgeon for seven years. She also got her MBA degree in 2002.

Dr. Qin was working for two global Medical Device Companies - Tyco healthcare and GE Healthcare in product and business management for 10 years before joining DuPont. Now she is responsible for driving regulatory and standard development for Healthcare of DuPont Safety & Construction in China. Selena Qin also serves as General Secretary of China Medical Devices Packaging Committee under China Association of Medical Device Industry (CAMDI) since 2016.

 

Bob Jacobs

Bob is the Design team leader at Nelipak Healthcare Packaging, Venray, the Netherlands. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Product Design from Fontys University of applied sciences he began his career with Nelipak in packaging as design engineer. During his 11 years in healthcare he has gained considerable packaging experience supporting clients worldwide in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry.

As design team leader Bob manages the Venray R&D department overseeing the development of new design tools and processes including 3D printing increasing design prototyping response times.

He created and implemented standardized Design Development Work Flows across Nelipak’s R&D centers leading to greater design team collaboration in the delivery of global projects.

His work in innovative packaging design was recently recognized when the Miltenyi CliniMACS Prodigy Tubing Set won the 2021 Ameristar award for Medical packaging.

 

Clark W. Houghtling

Clark Houghtling is the Vice President of Business Development & Technical Affairs for Cosmed Group, Inc. Cosmed was founded in 1981 to sterilize medical devices and spices. The company grew to be among the largest contract sterilization companies in the United States, until it divested its five medical device sterilization locations in 2005 to focus on food safety. The company continues to use various technologies to pasteurize raw agricultural commodities in facilities dedicated to those purposes. The company reentered the medical device sterilization market in 2012 performing contract sterilization, along with selling sterilization equipment (i.e. sterilizers, control systems, scrubbers, and related accessories).

Clark’s varied background includes extensive knowledge in sterilization technologies, related microbiological and chemical testing, business development, plant and quality management, medical device manufacturing, sales, marketing, and regulatory affairs. Prior to this position, Clark worked in various upper management positions for companies including Comet ebeam Technologies, Synergy Health, Stryker Orthopaedics, Microtest Labs, Steris, Mallinckrodt, and Ethox. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the State University of New York at Geneseo, and attended graduate school in Biology at Niagara University.

Clark has taught many courses and is a frequent lecturer to many varied groups including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) (where he is an AAMI Fellow and serves as an instructor for the Industrial Sterilization for Medical Devices and the Industrial Ethylene Oxide Sterilization for Medical Device courses), the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineers (ISPE), the Center for Professional Advancement (CPA), and for various companies. He is a member of the Sterilization Standards Committee at AAMI, the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and a senior member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ). In addition, he served as Vice President, and as Treasurer, of the Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Association (EOSA), and is a former ASQ Certified Quality Auditor (CQA). Clark also participated in helping formulate the AAMI Certified Industrial Sterilization Specialist (CISS) program, and was in the first group to achieve the CISS certification in Ethylene Oxide, Radiation, and Moist Heat.

 

Jennifer Benolken, CPPL

Jen Benolken earned her undergraduate degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and her master’s degree in International Management. Before joining DuPont™ Tyvek® Healthcare team, Jen has worked in the medical device community since 1991 in a variety of packaging roles – packaging, labeling, and sterilization engineer in operations and R&D, flexible packaging sales representative, and manager of packaging engineering and labeling groups.

Jen is currently the sub-committee chairperson for ASTM F02.50, Package Design and Development, as well as co-chair for AAMI’s ST/WG 7, Packaging Working Group. Jen is an active member of the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP) where she attained her lifetime Certified Packaging Professional (CPPL) certification. She is also on the Board of Directors and is Vice Chair on its Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee (MDPTC).

 

Nick Packet

With 15 years in the medical device packaging space Nick brings a versed skill set and insights to the DuPont™ Tyvek® Healthcare team. With previous experience focused on the development of medical device packaging he’s led the design and qualification of complex sterile packaging systems and processes. Joining the Tyvek® team in 2017 he continues to broaden his perspective of the market.

Nick shares his technical knowledge, experiences, and problem solving skills in his engagement with manufacturers and Tyvek® converters. Through this collaborative support he’s been able to better understand and identify opportunities where packaging can improve its performance, lifecycle impacts and overall cost of products.

Nick’s recent endeavors have lead him to supporting sustainability initiatives for which he has a passion and sees unique opportunities in the medical device market. With the Tyvek® Healthcare team being a member of the Healthcare Plastics Recycling Council (HPRC) Nick supported the Flexible Packaging Recycling Study and is currently leading HPRC’s Advance Recycling project team.

With medical device and pharmaceutical companies facing a variety of challenges, Nick strives to educate and explore with manufacturers where and how packaging can go beyond normal expectations. He strives to change perspectives of packaging, which is too often over simplified and its value underestimated. Rather, Nick fosters a thought process that packaging should be viewed at each point or step within the product’s lifecycle as it may be key to solving to some of the most challenging issues companies and the industries they play in are facing.

 

Migaël Nieuwenhuis

Cath lab technician at the Medical Center in Leeuwarden. Migaël Nieuwenhuis holds a Bachelor's degree of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy and is specialized in interventional cardiology. Prior to his specialization he worked in radiology and radiotherapy in various clinics throughout Europe. Currently he is also the radiation protection officer and involved with the implementation of the new cardiovascular information system of his department.

In 2020 he and several of his colleagues founded HartPlastic a multicenter initiative to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic in healthcare. The aim is to share knowledge and bundle resources in order to help manufacturers, hospitals and providers use polymers in a sustainable manner. They provide a platform for the medical industry, healthcare providers, government and universities to share their knowledge and perspective. Their first project started in 2021 and involves recycling plastic locally within the hospital.

 

José Postma

José is manager Sustainability & Innovations in the Reinier de Graaf Hospital, Delft, the Netherlands.

She started her career in Reinier de Graaf training in nursing. After her degree she specialized in Obestetrics & Gynaecology, and got her degree in management for health. For 10 years she has been a manager of the Obestetrics & Gynaecology floor also specialized in wound treatments.

The next 5 years she was working as a projectleader in IT to develop and implement the Electronic Health Record. In that time she was still working as a nurse. In 2015 she became manager Sustainability&Innovations. In this job she works a lot together with nurses and doctors at all departments like the ER, OR, ICU, pediatrics, and every other floor.

She has focus on patient safety and high standard care combined with circularity and medicine in water. Together with a team she works with startups to accelerate innovation in care.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Although we’re not able to see each other in person yet, we can’t stop reflecting on what a great time we had with all of you during the Medical Packaging Conference in 2019 and 2020. We’re excited to hear from this year’s all-star list of speakers and to hear from you! Make sure you save your spot today!