\n<\/p>\n
Anyone who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic would be hard-pressed to name much good that came from it, but healthcare packaging could prove to be a bright spot. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a talk Wednesday at the <\/span>SouthPack<\/a><\/span> trade show in Charlotte, NC, two representatives from Clemson University\u2019s Department of Food, Nutrition, and Packaging Sciences provided details about an expansion of the school\u2019s healthcare and pharmaceutical packaging offerings set to debut later this summer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing that as a big area,\u201d said <\/span>Brennan Lytle<\/a><\/span>, manager of the <\/span>Clemson Package Dynamics Lab<\/a><\/span>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The expansion, he explained, was spurred in part by the pandemic and resulting uptick in thermal shipping for vaccines.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNow we see our students’ desire to get into those spaces,\u201d Lytle said.<\/span><\/p>\n Clemson has long offered coursework on healthcare packaging, added <\/span>Haley Appleby<\/a><\/span>, co-director of the university\u2019s <\/span>Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design and Graphics<\/a><\/span> and a lecturer and capstone course coordinator in the packaging science program. But the university decided to beef up in this area in the wake of spiking interest.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cStudents were getting hired by medical device and pharmaceutical companies, and we saw this as a weakness of the program that we wanted to expand into,\u201d Appleby said. \u201cNow we\u2019re building an entire research lab around it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n