Advancing Pharmaceutical Packaging with Industrial 3D Printing & Engineered Foam Manufacturing
The pharmaceutical industry demands packaging solutions that meet strict transportation, thermal, and regulatory requirements. Traditional foam manufacturing and fabrication methods often limit what’s possible.
South West Exposures (SWE) partnered with Mosaic Manufacturing to develop advanced 3D printed inserts for a thermally regulated Type A pharmaceutical package used in the transportation of radio-labeled antibodies and small molecules associated with cancer detection and treatment.
The project demonstrates howMosaic’s automated additive manufacturing platform, proprietary materials, and application-specific workflows are enabling a new generation of high-performance pharmaceutical packaging and engineered foam solutions. This helps companies like SWE develop advanced components that would be difficult, or impossible, to produce using traditional manufacturing methods.
The Challenge
South West Exposures set out to develop a dual-purpose packaging solution capable of meeting both thermal validation and Type A transportation requirements within a single integrated system.
The application demanded:
- Strict DOT and transportation compliance
- IAEA SSR-6 Type A package performance requirements
- ISTA thermal validation requirements
- Reliable thermal performance across global shipping lanes
- Consistent production quality
- Complex component requirements
- Faster product development cycles
- Scalable manufacturing flexibility
Traditionally, the industry relied on certified Type A packages placed within separate thermally validated overpacks, creating added complexity, increased assembly requirements, limited design flexibility and increased volumetric/physical shipping weights..
At the same time, conventional foam fabrication methods and tooling-intensive production processes made it difficult to efficiently develop and manufacture the specialized components required for the application.
South West Exposures envisioned a more advanced approach: a single dual-validated and certified solution capable of consolidating these requirements into one integrated packaging system. But achieving that vision required a manufacturing process capable of supporting greater design freedom, faster iteration, and production-ready repeatability.
Why Mosaic
South West Exposures partnered with Mosaic to leverage more than just industrial 3D printing hardware.
Together, the companies developed a purpose-built additive manufacturing workflow tailored specifically to the application, combining:
- Automated industrial 3D printing
- Proprietary Mosaic materials
- Application-focused print optimization
- Production-ready manufacturing workflows
- Rapid iteration and validation cycles
By combining specialized materials with Mosaic’s additive manufacturing expertise, South West Exposures was able to rapidly develop and produce advanced packaging inserts optimized for demanding pharmaceutical transportation environments.
“For over two years, SWE envisioned solutions for a dual validated and certified ISTA/DOT Type A package,” said Rob Kamen, founding President at South West Exposures. “One of our valued vendors introduced me to Mosaic while 3D printing inserts. Immediately upon seeing what was being printed, I had a working premise for our Thermal Type A package.”
Rob Kamen
Founding President at South West Exposures
The Solution
Using Mosaic’s automated additive manufacturing platform, South West Exposures developed digitally manufactured inserts for an advanced thermally regulated pharmaceutical packaging system.
The solution enabled:
- Complex geometry production without hard tooling
- Faster design iteration and refinement
- Greater manufacturing flexibility
- Simplified development workflows
- Scalable production capability
- Digitally driven manufacturing updates
Because the components are digitally manufactured, designs can be refined and optimized more efficiently without requiring expensive tooling changes or lengthy manufacturing changeovers.
Most importantly, additive manufacturing enabled South West Exposures to produce packaging inserts that would not have been possible to manufacture using traditional foam.
A New Approach to Pharmaceutical Foam & Packaging Manufacturing
This collaboration highlights the growing role of digital manufacturing in pharmaceutical packaging, thermal shipping, and engineered foam applications.
For Mosaic, it also demonstrates something larger: how purpose-built additive manufacturing ecosystems, combining hardware, materials, software, and application expertise, can unlock entirely new production opportunities for highly specialized industries.
Rather than simply supplying a 3D printer, Mosaic partnered closely with South West Exposures to help develop a manufacturable, scalable solution tailored to the unique performance requirements of the application.
The result is a compelling example of how Mosaic’s platform can unlock major advancements in pharmaceutical packaging, thermal logistics, and engineered foam component manufacturing.
Looking Ahead
South West Exposures is initially implementing the solution within the radiopharmaceutical sector, with future opportunities anticipated across broader pharmaceutical applications.
As demand grows for more advanced, customizable, and high-performance packaging systems, additive manufacturing has the potential to redefine how engineered foam components are designed and produced.
This project demonstrates how companies like South West Exposures and Mosaic Manufacturing are helping push the industry toward a more flexible, digitally driven future for advanced packaging production.
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