Oracle has bought US firm Tolas Healthcare Packaging in a bid to bolster its pharma packaging capabilities.

The acquired business converts medical grade DuPont Tyvek, reinforced and surgical kraft papers, laminated and co-extruded films and multi-layer foil constructions in order to manufacture high-performance packaging for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

The company's converting operations are equipped for printing, coating, die-cutting, pouching, slitting, laminating, and sheeting and the end products produced include resistant, heat sealable and sterilisable pouches, tubing bags as well as high-barrier foil lidding.

Tolas' operations will now integrate with Oracle's eight manufacturing facilities, contributing a 50,000 square foot converting plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a 20,000 square foot coating site in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"Our combined resources will position us to create additional resources to support continued growth, technology development and operational excellence," Scott Dickman, president & CEO for Oracle Packaging.

Oracle has been active since 2000 producing folding carton and flexible packaging for a number of different industries, however, the growing pharmaceutical market is one the company has recently been eyeing.

Other packaging firms are also positioning themselves to benefit as the role of pharmaceutical packaging shifts from a passive to an active one - packaging maker Alcan, for example, recently announced it will invest $27.5m (€20.7m) for an expansion project in its US pharma centre to meet the growing demand for pharmaceutical flexible packaging materials.

In the US, the pharma packaging market is expected to grow by nearly a third between 2004 and 2011, driven by the increasing demands placed on packaging by biologic drugs, novel drug delivery formulations and the expanding usage of high-visibility packaging – such as blister packs – as a result of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations that now favour unit dose packaging.

High-performance, high-barrier and smart packaging are other areas of this market that are seeing increased activity as these technologies advance and become more cost friendly.

Security and counterfeit issues, the growing population of middle aged to elderly people, as well as the need for improved child-resistant solutions are all incentives for developing this kind of packaging.