More Than One Billion Components to Support Vaccines, Treatments and Diagnostics

As our customers faced the challenges set by the spread of a global pandemic, our healthcare business stepped up to serve partners across North America, Europe and Asia from over 50 strategically located manufacturing sites, offering an unrivaled range of packaging solutions to support COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.

• Folding cartons and multi-component kits 
• Specialty labels for vials and trays 
• Pharmaceutical literature 
• Product information brochures 
• Cold chain solutions for secondary packaging 
• Corrugated shipping containers 
• Distribution services 

Innovation 

During the pandemic, we applied our world class innovators to engineer a range of high-speed applications and easy-to-assemble multi-component packs for distributing diagnostic kits in massive quantities. In 2020, when Michigan State University was looking to welcome back students and faculty as safely as possible, Smurfit Westrock partnered with the School of Packaging to develop a customized, branded kit to support the school’s Early Detection Program, designed to detect asymptomatic people through saliva testing and mitigate the spread of the virus. By early 2021, the lab had scaled up capacity to handle 15,000-20,000 samples per week. Today we continue to innovate with Advanced Digital Adherence Technology (DAT) packaging that allows data driven adherence feedback, enabling early intervention during non-adherence events and improving the accuracy of efficacy data during clinical trials.  

Commitment 

We celebrate the way our global team rallied, working 24/7 across multiple business units within the supply chain to safely deliver on the most important example of healthcare packaging needs in our lifetime, and we continue to honor that commitment to quality products and service today by partnering, expert-to-expert, with our customers to develop thoughtful and innovative solutions to their greatest challenges. 

In 2024, we’re proud to provide the latest patient centric designs, solutions to replace plastic packaging components, and robust support for drugs making the transition to over-the-counter in the multi-channel consumer goods space.   

Smurfit Westrock is proud to have played a role in serving our communities during such a challenging time, and we strive to apply the same level of dedication, care and innovation to the challenges of today’s ever-changing market. When asked about our healthcare program, Director of Marketing Steven Linde said, “When it comes to innovating for our healthcare customers, driving sustainability shares priority with improving the patient experience - Our business is fiber-based packaging, but our strength is problem-solving, and we are committed to providing solutions for our customers’ most critical packaging challenges by developing unique solutions when needed and leveraging our global resources to execute effectively and precisely to maximize the value delivered. When you partner with Smurfit Westrock, our expertise is your advantage.” 

About Smurfit Westrock Healthcare

While our team was delivering packaging solutions to fight the pandemic, we also maintained our commitment to other customers whose products help fight other life altering or ending illnesses. Additionally, we stayed focused on the long-term health of our business, making investments in our facilities to improve our capabilities and efficiency. 

We believe packaging plays a vital role in making healthcare more patient-centric, and we begin our innovation process with consumer insights, partnering with our customers to scale our unmatched suite of packaging solutions from design to manufacturing, until it lands in their facilities. We also offer a full range of brand security, serialization, and passive and active brand security solutions that protect products, drive adherence and enhance patient experience. 

Learn more about our healthcare capabilities.