4 Key UN3373 packaging trends you can expect to see in 2025
Packaging is evolving rapidly, and as we reach the end of the first quarter of the year we have taken our industry insight to inform you of key themes and trends in packaging as we make our way through 2025.
Influences including a push towards more sustainable packaging, requirements to meet compliance regulations, advancements in technology and a desire for enhanced patient experience are becoming increasingly important across healthcare.
Choosing the right packaging provider is essential to ensuring product safety, usability, compliance and patient experience, particularly in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.
Here are 4 of the key packaging trends we’re seeing shape demands across the industry in 2025
We have also detailed how RDi can help you to stay up to date with packaging trends and meet the needs of patients and healthcare compliance alike:
Sustainable packaging trends
In recent years, there have been growing concerns for the environment and the impact we as humans have on it. Packaging is a key concern when it comes to sustainability as plastic, particularly single-use plastic, has been the go-to solution and material for packaging.
In the healthcare sector particularly, single-use plastic has been vital as it offers sterility and infection control, both of which are key priorities in safety and contamination. The bigger picture is that disposable medical devices alone contribute to 156,000 tonnes of clinical waste produced by the NHS every year.
There is a roadmap is set to minimise this waste.
The government have recently introduced an initiative to eliminate all avoidable plastic in healthcare by 2042. Therefore, 2025 will see an even bigger push towards sustainable packaging, and there are three key areas where packaging can become more sustainable:
- Recyclable materials
- Right-size packaging
- Minimised plastic in packaging
At RDi, we are dedicated to ensuring you meet your sustainability goals by minimising plastic usage across a variety of different sample collection devices and UN3373 packaging components. In doing so, we enable a range of diagnostic service providers, healthcare and clinical organisations to become more sustainable through their choice of kits, consumables and medical products.
In response to market gaps experienced by our customers, we created the safeTpouch, a 95kPa specimen transport bag that uses 73% less plastic than competitor products, reducing the overall plastic footprint for packaging and shipping sample tubes. This secondary packaging solution minimises excessive plastic use and offers a right size packaging solution. It is made to fit the specimen tube while remaining UN3373 compliant.
When it comes to reducing plastic, we don’t stop there. Our urine sample collection device also offers a 95% reduction in plastic! The safe2Pcanter is a flat-packed, innovatively designed medical device that is UKCA, CE and FDA registered. It offers a solution for patients that allows them to collect at-home urine sample safely and easily. The safe2Pcanter is also 100% recyclable once you remove the plastic inner.
Automation to enhance medical packaging compliance and patient experience
Packaging manufacturers are introducing automation to streamline their processes, ensuring manual error can be eliminated. Using programmable equipment and tools such as artificial intelligence, robots and computer-controlled machines, manufacturers can ensure that their production lines require minimal manual labour. This also allows them to keep up with growing demand, regulatory compliance requirements and focus on improving patient-centric initiatives.
Many organisations are looking to market-leaders in technology to enable automation. Patient data is a key focus too. Combining unique patient data with automated assembly of products and healthcare services is a key way to accelerate diagnostics for the general public.
When handling sensitive patient data that will be fed into automated production lines to assemble a specific sample collection kit or unique product for specimen collection, it is essential to get this right the first time. Delays in sample collection leads to delays in diagnosis and any treatment that may be required.
Automated manufacturing gets it right the first time.
At RDi, our computer-controlled machinery inputs patient data from step one, translating it into alpha-numeric barcodes, which will then be sent to the following production lines to ensure each component of the patient’s sample collection kit corresponds to the data input at the start.
Our multi-step camera verified production line ensures that each component in the kit aligns with the unique patient data assigned to it, meaning that we help you reach each patient with the kit they require in a timely, traceable manner.
Our automated production lines can produce up to 150,000 quality-assured medical kits per day with consistent precision and reliability, ensuring timely delivery for large-scale distribution. We also assembled over 36,000 kits per day as part of the NHS-led bowel cancer screening programme, with further exciting initiatives on the horizon for our scalable and automated kitting services.
Smart packaging is revolutionising the packaging industry
Enhancing patient experience is a key trend across healthcare in 2025, this includes medical packaging.
Healthcare providers now have the opportunity to improve patient experience through smart packaging. This is a type of medical packaging that uses interactive technology to improve patient experience.
We are now seeing the incorporation of instructions for use (IFU) within the packaging through QR codes that provide detailed, action-orientated, step-by-step written and visual instructions for the patient on how to use the sample collection kit. This ensures that a patient can safely and easily complete their sample collection with minimal stress. It also improves accessibility, allowing the patient to choose the best instruction method for them.
This is particularly valuable for healthcare providers who are looking to increase their use of at-home sample collection kits, as cancer screening programmes are rolled out across the nation. Smart packaging will ensure maximum uptake via increasing the ease of use, an essential tool for maintaining the populations health.
At-home sample collection kits
In 2025, healthcare providers are aiming to assess patients for diseases and infections before symptoms even appear. This aids early detection and provides an opportunity for quicker intervention and treatment, giving healthcare providers the best chance at reducing mortality rates.
Remote specimen collection has proved itself as a lifesaving tool for public health and a transformative method to diagnose in healthcare delivery. The benefits of at-home sample collection are now being adopted by many other areas of healthcare:
- At-home sample collection kits are being used for decentralised clinical trials, giving researchers a wider scope of participants in a trial. This will lead to stronger data for new drug candidates and vaccines which enter the market.
- They are also ideal for addressing issues around missed appointments and screening participation. Improved accessibility has reduced the number of incomplete kits and missed appointments as the sector continues to support those who feel uncomfortable in clinical environments.
- Stronger pandemic and global response actions are now in place for potential future instances like COVID-19. At home sample collection kits are expanding to adapt to various category B samples which will ensure quick response to any global health threats.
Overall, they create patient-centric pathways to diagnosis, ensuring that the patient is at the centre of their own care.
As a result, the need for at-home sample collection kits has increased and finding a compact solution that allows healthcare providers to keep up with the demand for kits is essential.
At RDi, we have developed an expansive at-home sample collection kit portfolio that is UKCA, CE and MHRA registered, ensuring compliance, patient safety and enhanced user experience when seeking diagnosis.
Sexual health collection kit
HPV sample collection kit
Urine sample collection kit
Capillary blood collection kit
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you stay ahead of the medical packaging trends this year.
